The newest Cygnus cargo ship departed the International Space 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 Control Center in Houston as each spacecraft sailed excessive over the South Pacific Ocean. The Cygnus spacecraft floated away from the International Space Station beneath the supervision of Matthias Maurer, an astronaut of the European Space Agency on the station’s Expedition 66 crew.
Video: Watch astronauts capture Cygnus NG-16 in orbit
Cygnus will spend a number of weeks in space earlier than being directed to re-enter the ambiance on Dec. 15. During that point, floor controllers will deploy the Kentucky Re-Entry Probe Experiment, the newest in a sequence of autonomous experiments that run throughout the previous couple of weeks of Cygnus missions.
This new experiment will “demonstrate a thermal protection system for spacecraft and their contents during re-entry in Earth’s atmosphere, which can be difficult to replicate in ground simulations,” NASA said in a statement.
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 first 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 biggest ever cargo delivery 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 solar arrays. Experiments included a slime mould (a brainless blob) and two payloads to look at human muscle cells in space.
The mission was the fifteenth operational resupply launch to the space station by Northrop Grumman since 2014. Earlier launches had been overseen by Orbital Sciences and Orbital ATK, which Northrop Grumman later acquired.
“The Cygnus system has evolved from being just a cargo delivery service to a high performing science platform,” mentioned Northrop Grumman’s Steve Krein, vp, civil and business space, tactical space techniques, mentioned in a press release. “We continue to develop these capabilities to include the installation of environmental control systems and other upgrades to support the lunar orbiting Habitation and Logistics Outpost, or HALO.”
The HALO project is a habitation module for NASA’s deliberate Gateway space 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 space station might be a SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft, which is slated to launch in late December.
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