Four spaceships are parked at the space station including Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus space freighter, the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Russia’s Soyuz MS-18 crew ship and ISS Progress 78 resupply ship. Courtesy NASA
The Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft arrived and was installed at the International Space Station on Thursday morning.
It was bolted into place on the International Space Station’s Earth-facing port of the Unity module at 9:42 a.m. EDT. Cygnus will remain at the space station for about three months until the spacecraft departs in November.
The spacecraft’s arrival brings more than 8,200 pounds of research and supplies that will be used to conduct further study.
At 6:07 a.m. EDT on Thursday, NASA astronaut Megan McArthur used the International Space Station’s robotic Canadarm2 to grapple the Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft as ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet monitored Cygnus systems during its approach.
At the time of capture, the spacecraft was flying about 260 miles above the Atlantic Ocean southwest of Lisbon, Portugal.
Northrop Grumman is a commercial partner for NASA that delivers critical supplies to the space station. This flight marks its 16th cargo mission and fifth under its NASA contract.
The spacecraft launched Tuesday from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
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