Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft, launched last Friday, October 2, has just reached the International Space Station and was captured by the Canadarm2 robotic arm. Astronaut Chris Cassidy, assisted by cosmonaut Ivan Vagner, 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-14 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 “Kalpana Chawla” is scheduled to leave the International Space Station around mid-December 2020. 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. In particular, there are those on fires in space that are becoming more sophisticated. They have a variable length that depends on the schedule. In the NG-14 mission’s “coda”, there will be the Saffire-V experiment. The Cygnus will be destroyed in the atmosphere reentry about two weeks after its departure.

The 14th 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 once. The next mission could begin in February 2021.