NASA’s Cygnus launch on the International Space Station this week could appear in most parts of the east coast, depending on weather conditions.
The unmanned Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft will launch on Thursday from NASA’s Wall Laps flight facility in Virginia on one of the company’s entry rockets. The launch, which was pushed back from Tuesday due to inclement weather, will begin just before 9:38 p.m. on Thursday, according to the space agency.
If weather conditions allow, the rocket will appear in Washington DC, 90 seconds after launch and in New York City after the lift, NASA says.
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NASA explained that the spacecraft would be loaded with about 8,000 pounds of research, crew supplies and hardware. Space.com reports that one of the items being transported to the space station is a new space toilet.
This black and white infrared photograph launches the Northrop Grumman’s Entrance Rocket, Pad-0A, with the Cygnus Response spacecraft on Wednesday, April 17, 2019 at the Citizen’s Wall Lops Pass flight facility.
(Credits: NASA / Bill Ingles)
After the NASA astronaut who died in the Columbia crash, S.S. The Cygnus spacecraft named Kalpana Chawla is scheduled to reach the orbiting space lab in October. Wagner of Rosecosmos will act as a backup, Nasco said in a statement. “After the capture of Cygnus, the mission in Houston will send ground commands for the robotic arm of the station to rotate and install it under the station’s Unity module.”
Cygnus will leave the space station in mid-December. NASA said in a statement that the Sapphire-V experiment would be conducted about two weeks after departure, before Cygnus Diorbit and several tons of debris were disposed of during re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere.
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Spacecraft fire safety experiments (sapphires) are designed to investigate major flame growth and physical flammability limitations in space. The space agency said on its website that the experimental Cygnus cargo vehicle departed from the station after completing its primary international space station supply mission, and its destroyers on Earth are ignited before retraining.
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