NASA recently live-streamed the launch of a space shuttle from the International Space Station (ISS), but it wasn’t Boeing’s Starliner, which stayed at the orbital outpost longer than expected due to technical issues.
On Friday, the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm extracted Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft from the Unity module before gently pushing it away from the Earth-orbiting facility.
The unmanned Cygnus rover arrived at the station five and a half months ago, bringing with it 8,200 pounds of supplies, scientific research, commercial products, hardware and other essential cargo.
.@NorthropgrummanThe Cygnus space cargo flight was released from the Canadarm2 robotic arm at 7:01 a.m. today, ending its five-and-a-half-month stay in the orbiting laboratory. Further… https://t.co/F55tLmJiXr pic.twitter.com/fge7xHiav6
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) July 12, 2024
The spacecraft’s final mission will include the Kentucky Re-Entry Probe Experiment-2 (KREPE-2), which will take measurements to demonstrate the thermal protection system for spacecraft and their contents during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. .
Cygnus has now planned and re-executed a deorbit engine firing, in which the spacecraft – and all the ISS debris packed into it – will burn up safely in Earth’s atmosphere.
Cygnus arrived at the space station in early February, having begun its journey aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This is Northrop Grumman’s 20th Commercial Resupply Service mission to the station for NASA.
Meanwhile, the Starliner has been docked at the ISS for a longer period than expected. The spacecraft arrived at the station on its first crew flight on June 6, but problems with five of its thrusters, along with several helium leaks, extended the mission beyond the originally planned week, while engineers try to gain a better understanding of what caused the problems.
In a live media briefing last week, NASA astronaut Suni Williams, one of the two Starliner crew members, said: “This is a test flight, so we expected to find some things, so we’re finding things. Fixing it.”
In a later update, Steve Stich, NASA’s commercial team program manager, commented: „We’re taking our time to look at all the data we have before we decide on the possibility of a return.”
At the present time, no date has been set for the return of the Starliner and its crew, although there is some expectation that it will fly home by the end of July.
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