Orbital and NASA Now Aiming for Cygnus Arrival at ISS on Sunday
Sunday is the latest estimate of when Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft will make a second attempt to complete its journey to the International Space Station (ISS). The first attempt last Sunday was aborted because of a data mismatch between Cygnus and ISS.
NASA and Orbital decided to wait for a second attempt until after the launch and docking of three new ISS crew members. They successfully arrived last night Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), enabling planning to resume for Cygnus. Like Japan’s HTV and SpaceX’s Dragon, Cygnus will be berthed to ISS by astronauts using Canadarm2 to grapple it and install it onto a docking port, rather than the spacecraft docking with ISS under its own power. The delay to Sunday gives the new ISS crew members a chance to settle into their new quarters and Orbital’s team to be well rested.
Cygnus was launched on an Antares rocket on September 18.
Orbital said today that the Sunday arrival date is still to be confirmed, but if that is the day, NASA TV live coverage will begin at 4:30 am EDT.
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