Live coverage of the departure of Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft from the International Space Station is underway on NASA+ streaming, NASA Television, the agency’s website, and the NASA app, with its release from the robotic arm scheduled for 8:05 a.m. EST.
Flight controllers on the ground sent commands earlier Friday morning for the space station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to detach Cygnus from the Unity module’s Earth-facing port, and then maneuver the spacecraft into position for its release. NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara will monitor Cygnus’ systems upon its departure from the space station.
Following a deorbit engine firing in early January, Cygnus will begin a planned destructive re-entry, in which the spacecraft – filled with trash packed by the station crew – will safely burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Cygnus arrived at the space station Aug. 4, following a launch on Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. It was the company’s 19th commercial resupply services mission to the space station for NASA. Northrop Grumman named the spacecraft after the late NASA astronaut Laurel Clark.
Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.
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