U.S. Cargo Craft Launches to Station for Monday Delivery

The Cygnus space freighter blasts off on time atop the Antares rocket from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
The Cygnus space freighter blasts off on time atop the Antares rocket from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

A fresh supply of 8,300 pounds of scientific investigations and cargo is on its way to the International Space Station on a Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply spacecraft after launching on an Antares rocket at 12:40 p.m. EST Saturday from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

Cygnus is scheduled to arrive at the space station around 4:35 a.m. Monday, Feb. 21. NASA Television, the NASA app, and agency’s website will provide live coverage of the spacecraft’s approach and arrival beginning at 3 a.m.

NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Kayla Barron will capture Cygnus with the station’s robotic Canadarm2 upon its arrival. After capture, the spacecraft will be installed on the Unity module’s Earth-facing port. This is Northrop Grumman’s 17th contracted resupply mission under the second Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA.

This is the first Cygnus mission featuring enhanced capabilities to perform a re-boost to the space station’s orbit as a standard service for NASA; one re-boost is planned while Cygnus is connected to the orbiting laboratory.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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