Cygnus cargo ship set by appointment with Space Station after delay caused by engine stops

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo shipCarrying more than 11,000 pounds of equipment and supplies for the international space station, is expected to go with the space station Thursday morning, NASA announced on Wednesday.

This occurs after two premature engine stops on Tuesday forced the flight controllers to interrupt a carefully planned appointment and to delay the arrival of the ship at the forefront.

NASA announced on Wednesday evening that the problem had been resolved and the cargo was to arrive at the space station at 7:18 am East time.

“The data shared by the spacecraft confirmed that Cygnus XL operated as planned during two planned maneuvers when an early alert system launched a stop order and ended the combustion of the main engine due to a conservative backup in the software settings,” NASA said in a press release.

NASA said astronaut Jonny Kim, with the support of NASA astronaut, Zena Cardman, will capture Cygnus XL using the station’s robotic arm of the station.

The Cygnus was launched on Sunday from Cape Canaveral at the top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The cargo cargo was released from the upper Booster scene as planned, launching a sequence of meeting rockets with precision to catch up with the space station.

Unlike SpaceX cargo cargo cargo cargoes and Russian progress cargo ships, which make autonomous hooks in their respective ports, the cygnus was designed to be captured by the station’s robot arm and pulled for the frame.

The capture of Cygnus XL had been scheduled for Wednesday morning, but was suspended while engineers work to understand the problem and develop another appointment plan.

“Early Tuesday morning, the main engine of Cygnus XL stopped earlier than expected for two burns designed to raise the orbit of the spaceship for the appointment with the space station,” NASA said in a previous blog article. “All other Cygnus XL systems are operating normally.”

Progress launched last week successfully moored at the station on Saturday. The launch of Cygnus XL is a long-awaited step for Northrop Grumman after a previous cygnus was damaged during the transit of a subcontractor in Europe at Cape Canaveral. This vehicle is always on the ground while waiting for analysis and repairs.

The launch of Sunday was the third of the four SpaceX flights bought by Northrop Grumman while the company is recovering from public transportation and continues its work to develop its new booster.

And it was the first flight of the Cygnus XL, so named because the improved freighter was extended to transport more cargo to the station by flight.

“We have teamed up with Northrop Grumman on this update, and we are delighted that Northrop is ready to offer this incredibly beneficial increase in capacity,” said Dina Contella, Deputy Director of the Spatial Station for NASA. “It measures approximately 1.6 meters (5 feet) more and it carries around 2,600 additional pounds of cargo.”

For its first flight, the XL ship is loaded with more than five and a half tonnes of necessary spare parts, search equipment and crew supplies, including holiday treats for the station crew.

“The (Cygnus) is filled with consumables, such as nitrogen, oxygen, food and toilets, and it contains a large number of spare parts that are necessary for systems such as, for example, our urine processor,” said Contella. “We are full of these articles since we have been short in the past year, and we would like to have a good reserve for the future.”

NASA pays freight delivery flights using cygnus and dragon spaces. To date, SpaceX has successfully completed 32 Dragon replenishment missions while Northrop Grumman has finished 20 successful flights without counting the current mission.

The two companies underwent a failure in flight, each to launch misadventures at the start of the commercial replenishment program.