Northrop Grummans uncrewed Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled to depart the International Space Station on Saturday, Nov. 20, more than three months after delivering nearly 8,000 pounds of supplies, scientific investigations, commercial products, hardware, and other cargo to the orbiting laboratory.
Live coverage of the spacecrafts departure will begin at 10:45 a.m. EST on NASA Television, the agencys website, and the NASA app.
Flight controllers on the ground will send commands for the space stations Canadarm2 robotic arm to detach Cygnus from the Unity modules Earth-facing port. The arm will then maneuver the spacecraft into position and release it at 11 a.m. Astronaut Matthias Maurer of ESA (European Space Agency) will monitor Cygnus systems upon its departure from the space station.
After departure, the Kentucky Re-Entry Probe Experiment (KREPE) stowed inside Cygnus will take measurements to demonstrate a thermal protection system for spacecraft and their contents during re-entry in Earths atmosphere, which can be difficult to replicate in ground simulations.
Cygnus will deorbit on Wednesday, Dec. 15, following a deorbit engine firing to set up a destructive re-entry in which the spacecraft, filled with waste the space station crew packed in the spacecraft, will burn up in Earths atmosphere.
Cygnus arrived at the space station Aug. 12, following a launch two days prior on Northrop Grummans Antares rocket from NASAs Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. It was the companys 16th commercial resupply services mission to the space station for NASA. Northrop Grumman named the spacecraft after NASA astronaut Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian American astronaut.
