NASA commercial cargo supplier Northrop Grumman’s 14th launch mission to the International Space Station has been tested.
The Cygnus spacecraft, named after Indian astronaut Kalpana Chawla, is scheduled to be launched from the NASA Wallops flight facility, which was delayed by about 2 minutes and 40 seconds before being lifted due to an unknown problem on some of the ground support equipment.
The launch of the Antares rocket, which carries the Cygnus spacecraft, which is provided for nearly 8,000 pounds of cargo and the International Space Station, is now scheduled for 9:43 p.m. EDT. NASA commercial cargo supplier Northrop Grumman is set to launch its 14th reconnaissance mission to the International Space Station tonight.
The Cygnus spacecraft, called SS Kalpana Chawla, will arrive at the space station on Sunday, October 4th. NASA says that once Cygnus is captured, a robot at the Houston Task Force will send ground commands for the robot to rotate its hand and place it under the site’s unity module.
Cygnus will leave the station until mid-December at the space station. After the launch, the Saffire-V experiment will be conducted before Cygnus deorbit, and about two weeks later, several tons of garbage will be disposed of during the re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.
