December 23, 2024

Cygnus Mission Go for Saturday Launch as Space Station Crew Preps

Cygnus area truck. Credit: NASA
A U.S. resupply ship is poised to blast off Saturday morning on a day-and-a-half-long journey to replenish the International Space Station. While two astronauts train for its robotic capture, the rest of the Expedition 66 crew focused on maintaining science hardware and orbital lab systems.
NASA Flight Engineers Raja Chari and Kayla Barron will be on responsibility Monday early morning observing Cygnuss arrival from the seven-windowed cupola. Chari will be at the robotics workstation commanding the Canadarm2 robotic arm to capture Cygnus on Monday at 4:35 a.m. when it reaches a range of about 10 meters from the station.
Astronauts Raja Chari and Kayla Barron train on the robotics workstation for the capture of the Cygnus space truck when it arrives on February 21, 2022. Credit: NASA
Cygnus will then be set up on Unity, where the astronauts will open the hatches shortly later and begin discharging over 8,300 pounds of station gear and brand-new science experiments. NASA TV, on the agencys app and site, will broadcast the launch live starting Saturday at 12:15 p.m. with rendezvous and capture coverage beginning Monday at 3 a.m

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By NASA
February 18, 2022

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NASA Flight Engineer Mark Vande Hei worked on the Kibo lab modules water healing system while NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn replaced parts inside the COLBERT treadmill. Astronaut Matthias Maurer of ESA (European Space Agency) took a look at wireless gear that downloads biomedical information then relocated to radiation detection hardware.
Commander Anton Shkaplerov checked out plasma physics that could inform future research study techniques and spacecraft styles. Roscosmos Flight Engineer worked on Russian communications gear prior to continuing to unpack cargo from the recently gotten here Progress 80 freight craft.

NASA Flight Engineers Raja Chari and Kayla Barron will be on duty Monday morning observing Cygnuss arrival from the seven-windowed cupola. Chari will be at the robotics workstation commanding the Canadarm2 robotic arm to record Cygnus on Monday at 4:35 a.m. when it reaches a range of about 10 meters from the station. NASA TELEVISION, on the companys app and site, will relay the launch live starting Saturday at 12:15 p.m. with rendezvous and capture protection starting Monday at 3 a.m