Live coverage of the departure of the S.S. Patricia “Patty” Hilliard Robertson Northrop Grumman’s uncrewed Cygnus cargo spacecraft from the International Space Station is underway on NASA+, NASA Television, the agency’s website, and the NASA app, with its release from the robotic arm scheduled for 7 a.m. EDT. Coverage will conclude following departure from station.
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 Tracy Dyson will monitor Cygnus’ systems during its departure from the space station.
After departure, the Kentucky Re-entry Probe Experiment-2 (KREPE-2), stowed inside Cygnus, will take measurements to 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.
After a deorbit engine firing on Saturday, July 13, 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 Feb. 1, following a launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. It was the company’s 20th commercial resupply services mission to the space station for NASA. The spacecraft is named the S.S. Patricia “Patty” Hilliard Robertson in honor of the former NASA astronaut.
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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