A special cargo spacecraft blasted off from the International Space Station (ISS) early Tuesday (June 28) on its way to oblivion as it concludes its months-long mission to the outpost.
Built by Northrop Grumman, a robot swan The cargo ship was released by the station’s robotic arm at 7:05 a.m. EDT (1105) Tuesday morning. The departure occurred an hour later than planned to avoid potential encounters with space debris and allow better communications with spacecraft. Northrop Grumman handlers, NASA officials said.
hen – His name is SS dock sellers After the late NASA astronaut and climate scientist arrived at International Space Station (ISS) on February 21 with more than 8,300 lb (3,760 kg) of science experiments and other supplies.
“We just want to take a second to say our congratulations to the entire Northrop Grumman and NASA team on the outstanding NG-17 mission,” NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins radioed to Mission Control after Cygnus’ departure.
In addition to the literal tons of scientific supplies and hardware that have delivered to the International Space Station, the NG-17 Cygnus SS Piers Sellers Successfully completed the re-enhancement of the International Space Stationbringing a new and important capability to the space station that Sellers helped build.”
SS Piers sellers leave on the rise. A few days before its planned departure, the cargo ship launched its main engine on June 25 to boost the altitude of the International Space Station. The maneuver was a watershed moment, as it showed that the Cygnus spacecraft could handle re-enhancements of the International Space Station, which had so far been handled by Russia’s robotic Progress spacecraft.
“This modernization of the International Space Station using Cygnus adds a critical capability to help maintain and support the space station,” Steve Keren, Vice President, Civil and Commercial Space, Tactical Space Systems at Northrop Grumman, He said in a statement (Opens in a new tab). It also demonstrates the tremendous capability that Cygnus brings to the International Space Station and future space exploration efforts.
Now that NG-17 Cygnus has left the space station, NASA officials said, it will deploy a series of small payloads into orbit before ending its mission.
SS Piers Sellers will run its engine again on Wednesday (June 29) if it burns out from orbit, setting it on course for a devastating re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. (Unlike SpaceX the Dragon The cargo capsule, which can be reused, burns up the Cygnus and Progress spacecraft when their missions are completed.)
SS Piers Sellers was the seventeenth Cygnus to fly to the space station. The spacecraft’s departure occurred shortly after another spaceflight event – The NASA’s CAPSTONE Moon Mission Launchedwhich is scheduled to launch aboard an Electron rocket on Tuesday at 5:55 a.m. EDT (0955 GMT).
Editor’s note: This story, originally published on June 27, was updated on June 28 to include details of the departure of the NG-17 Cygnus SS Piers Sellers cargo ship from the International Space Station.
Mike Wall is the author of “Abroad (Opens in a new tab)Book (Great Grand Publishing House, 2018; illustrated by Carl Tate), a book on the search for extraterrestrials. Follow him on Twitter Tweet embed (Opens in a new tab). Follow us on Twitter Tweet embed (Opens in a new tab) or on Facebook (Opens in a new tab).
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