Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft, launched last Saturday, February 15, has just reached the International Space Station and was captured by the Canadarm2 robotic arm. Astronaut Andrew Morgan, assisted by his colleague Jessica Meir, will soon begin the slow maneuver to move the Cygnus until it docks with the Station’s Unity module after about two hours.

Tomorrow the International Space Station crew should open the Cygnus spacecraft’s hatch and at that point the cargo will be slowly brought to the Station. The NG-13 mission is almost accomplished because the Cygnus spacecraft can’t land and when it comes back into Earth’ss atmosphere it will disintegrate. For this reason, it will be used to get rid of component failed or that can’t be used any longer on the International Space Station: all of that will be loaded on the Cygnus and will disintegrate along with it.

The Cygnus named “Robert Lawrence” is scheduled to leave the International Space Station in about three months, next May. In these cases, a tentative date for the cargo spacecraft departure is given that can be modified because it also depends on other tasks that can have higher priority. Northrop Grumman is making its cargo spacecraft more resistant to space conditions to use them for more tasks after their departure.

The experiments on board to be carried out after departing the International Space Station have now become normal, to the point that the Cygnus “Alan Bean”, which performed the NG-12 mission, is still in orbit. It already happened that two Cygnus space freighters were in orbit at the same time precisely for this reason. Among the experiments conducted there are those on fires in space that are becoming more sophisticated. For the Cygnus “Robert Lawrence” various tests with different pressurization conditions are scheduled.

The thirteenth of the official missions established by Northrop Grumman’s contract with NASA, the second of the CRS2 (Commercial Resupply Services 2) contract, had no problems after the launch was postponed a number of times for technical and weather problems. The next mission could begin in October 2020.