Space Station supplies arrive late after Cygnus spacecraft engine burn trouble, NASA says
Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft was set to deliver supplies, research and food to the International Space Station on Wednesday. The delivery was delayed a day while engineers evaluated why one of the main engine burns stopped short.
SpaceX launches Cygnus cargo ship to space station with NASA supplies
FILE VIDEO: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched Northrop Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft on Sunday from Florida carrying more than 8,000 pounds of supplies to the International Space Station. About 8 minutes after launch, the Falcon 9 first stage came back for landing at Cape Canaveral.
HOUSTON – A spacecraft packed with supplies for the astronauts on the International Space Station arrived a day later than planned after NASA said there was a problem with an engine burn needed to get the Cygnus spacecraft to the station.
On Sunday, Northrop Grumman's Cygnus XL spacecraft launched to the space station on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The spacecraft is filled with 11,000 pounds of science experiments, research supplies and food for the orbiting laboratory.
NASA astronaut Jonny Kim was set to capture Cygnus at 6:35 a.m. EDT on Wednesday using the Canadarm2 with NASA astronaut Zena Cardman as backup support. However, early on Tuesday morning, as the spacecraft was completing a series of two burns designed to raise its orbit for rendezvous with the space station, one of its main engines stopped firing earlier than planned, according to NASA.
ASTRONAUTS CAPTURE STUNNING VIEWS OF LUNAR ECLIPSE FROM SPACE
NASA and Northrop Grumman delayed the arrival while flight controllers evaluated an alternate burn plan.
In an update, NASA said, "Cygnus XL operated as intended during two planned maneuvers when an early warning system initiated a shutdown command and ended the main engine burn because of a conservative safeguard in the software settings."
On Thursday morning, mission control gave Cygnus XL the go ahead to approach the ISS and was successfully captured by Kim using the Canadaarm2.
File photo: Northrop Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft pictured in the grips of the space station's Canadarm2 on Aug. 6, 2024.
After capture around 7 a.m. on Thursday, Cygnus was installed on the Unity Module, where it will remain until March 2026.
This is the 23rd commercial resupply mission with Cygnus. In 2018, Northrop Grumman acquired Orbital ATX, the previous operator of Cygnus.
Less than a week ago, a Russian Progress spacecraft docked at the ISS with 2.8 tons of supplies.