The Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft, launched last Wednesday, April 16, has just reached the International Space Station and was captured by Canadarm2 robotic arm. Astronaut Anne McClain, assisted by her colleague David Saint-Jacques, will soon begin the slow maneuver to move the Cygnus until it docks with the Station’s Unity node 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-11 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 “Roger Chaffee” is scheduled to leave the International Space Station in about three months, around July 23. 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. In the past experiments were already conducted aboard and some Cygnus ships spent weeks in orbit before disintegrating into the Earth’s atmosphere, in this case the experiments are scheduled to continue for months, until December.

This is the 11th and last of the official missions established with the last extension by Northrop Grumman’s contract with NASA, acquired with Orbital ATK, to resupply the International Space Station. The company was selected by NASA for the second contract as well so the next mission will be the first of its CRS2 contract and might start in October 2019.