The newest Cygnus cargo ship departed the Worldwide House Station Saturday (Nov. 20) after sending a haul of cargo to the orbiting crew.
The Northrop Grumman NG-16 resupply vessel was launched from the grip of the station’s robotic arm at 11:01 a.m. EST (1601 GMT) by a command from NASA’s Mission Management Middle in Houston as each spacecraft sailed excessive over the South Pacific Ocean. The Cygnus spacecraft floated away from the Worldwide House Station below the supervision of Matthias Maurer, an astronaut of the European House Company on the station’s Expedition 66 crew.
Video: Watch astronauts seize Cygnus NG-16 in orbit
Cygnus will spend a number of weeks in house earlier than being directed to re-enter the environment on Dec. 15. Throughout that point, floor controllers will deploy the Kentucky Re-Entry Probe Experiment, the most recent in a collection of autonomous experiments that run throughout the previous few weeks of Cygnus missions.
This new experiment will “reveal a thermal safety system for spacecraft and their contents throughout re-entry in Earth’s environment, which could be tough to duplicate in floor simulations,” NASA mentioned in a press release.
Cygnus arrived on the ISS on Aug. 12 hauling its greatest supply but, with 4 tons of stuff. The Cygnus provide ship was christened the S.S. Ellison Onizuka in honor of the primary Asian American astronaut Ellison Onuzuka, who was killed together with six others within the Challenger shuttle catastrophe in 1986.
The spacecraft arrived with greater than 8,200 lbs. (3,720 kilograms) of provides, gear and experiments, the largest ever cargo supply to the station by a Cygnus spacecraft. The supply included new {hardware}, a carbon dioxide scrubber for making certain breathable air, and gear for the station’s upgraded photo voltaic arrays. Experiments included a slime mildew (a brainless blob) and two payloads to look at human muscle cells in house.
The mission was the fifteenth operational resupply launch to the house station by Northrop Grumman since 2014. Earlier launches have been overseen by Orbital Sciences and Orbital ATK, which Northrop Grumman later acquired.
“The Cygnus system has advanced from being only a cargo supply service to a excessive performing science platform,” mentioned Northrop Grumman’s Steve Krein, vice chairman, civil and industrial house, tactical house techniques, mentioned in a press release. “We proceed to develop these capabilities to incorporate the set up of environmental management techniques and different upgrades to help the lunar orbiting Habitation and Logistics Outpost, or HALO.”
The HALO mission is a habitation module for NASA’s deliberate Gateway house station across the moon for future Artemis astronauts. Northrop Grumman is utilizing its expertise with Cygnus to design the HALO module.
The subsequent U.S. cargo ship to go to the house station will likely be a SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft, which is slated to launch in late December.
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