Cygnus Spacecraft Arrives at the International Space Station

​On Sunday, the Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo spacecraft arrived at the ISS following the launch on the Antares rocket last week. The spacecraft comes bearing gifts to the six astronauts onboard the spacecraft, including scientific investigations, food and supplies.
 
The Cygnus OA-5 mission began with the flight of the first re-engined Antares rocket, lifting off in spectacular fashion on Monday, October 17th at 19:40 EDT from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on the Virginia coast. The Cyngus spacecraft was captured by the station’s robotic arm, controlled by Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, at 07:28 EDT on Sunday. Flight controllers then remotely controlled the arm to install Cygnus on the Unity module, where it will remain for around a month.

The mission gave NASA an opportunity to send up over 5,100 pounds of science investigations, food, supplies and hardware for the ISS and its six-person crew. Some of the investigations are:

• A new life science facility called the Space Automated Bio Lab that’ll support studies on cell cultures, bacteria, and other micro-organisms.
• The Bevo-2 CubeSat, designed and built by engineering and computer science students at the University of Texas at Austin.
• Experiments that will study the behaviour of gases and liquids and clarify the thermo-physical properties of molten steel.

This was the first launch of the Antares rocket since its catastrophic failure in October 2014, where the Orb-3 Cygnus spacecraft came to an abrupt end to its mission just seconds after launch. The incident was investigated and it was concluded that the AJ26 first stage engines were to blame for the anomaly. The Antares rocket is now powered by two RD-181 first stage engines that immaculately thrusted the rocket and spacecraft upwards last Monday.
 
The spacecraft is expected to spend five weeks attached to the space station, and will become the ‘trash can’ for astronauts onboard to throw away no longer needed supplies and gear. It will be undocked in November, and, following a few scientific experiments, will be commanded to perform a destructive re-entry in Earth’s atmosphere.
 
The next launch of the Antares rocket is expected sometime in the first quarter of 2017, an event that is eagerly anticipated by all!