Orbital ATK - Antares / Cygnus OA-5 Mission logo.
October 23, 2016
U.S. Commercial Cargo Ship Arrives at the Space Station. Video: NASA TV
Orbital ATK’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft was berthed to the Unity module of the International Space Station at 10:53 a.m. EDT. The Expedition 49 crew will begin unloading approximately 5,000 pounds of science investigations, food and supplies when the hatch between the newly arrived spacecraft and the Unity module of the space station is opened. The spacecraft is scheduled to spend a little more than a month attached to the station.
Image above: Today’s installation of the Orbital ATK Cygnus resupply ship makes four spaceships attached to the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA TV.
Expedition 49 Flight Engineers Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Kate Rubins of NASA successfully captured Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft with the station’s robotic arm at 7:28 a.m. EDT. NASA TV coverage of operations to install Cygnus to the space station’s Unity module begins at 9 a.m.
Image above: The Cygnus resupply ship slowly approaches the space station before the Canadarm2 reaches out and grapples it. Image Credit: NASA TV.
Orbital ATK’s Cygnus was launched on the company’s Antares rocket Monday, Oct 17, from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad 0A at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Cygnus will remain attached to Unity until a planned departure in November sends the spacecraft toward a destructive re-entry in Earth’s atmosphere.
For more information about newly arrived science investigations aboard the Cygnus, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station
Images (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.
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