Cygnus Freighter Reaches ISS With Only One Functioning Solar Array - Gizmodo

The S.S. Sally Ride has safely docked astatine the International Space Station pursuing a nail-biting travel successful which 1 of its 2 star arrays failed to deploy.

Northrop Grumman’s expendable freighter launched connected Monday, November 7, carrying 8,200 pounds of cargo to the ISS. On its mode to the orbiting abstraction station, however, the Cygnus capsule failed to deploy 1 of its 2 star arrays, which collects powerfulness for its travel done space. “Northrop Grumman is gathering information connected the 2nd array deployment and is moving intimately with NASA,” the abstraction bureau wrote successful a blog station connected Monday.

Despite having lone 1 afloat unfurled star array, the Cygnus spacecraft safely arrived astatine the ISS connected Wednesday astatine 5:20 a.m. ET, according to a NASA blog post. As the cargo capsule approached the station, NASA astronaut Nicole Mann utilized the Canadarm2 robotic arm to drawback the conveyance and maneuver it towards the station’s docking port. This is standard procedure for capturing Cygnus and not the effect of the star sheet anomaly.

The 55-foot-long (17-meter) Canadian limb features a “hand” that astronauts usage to drawback onto objects and adjacent the ISS itself. After Mann commanded the robotic limb from wrong the ISS, crushed controllers took implicit to usher the capsule and dock it astatine the station’s Unity module, NASA wrote.

A crushed for the malfunction has not yet been disclosed. “To stay focused connected the spacecraft’s accomplishment astatine the station, Northrop Grumman and NASA made the determination not to deploy the 2nd star array aft archetypal attempts to deploy it were unsuccessful,” the abstraction bureau said.

This is Northrop Grumman’s 18th resupply ngo to the ISS arsenic portion of its Commercial Resupply Services declaration with NASA, successful which it delivers unit supplies, equipment, and subject experiments to the orbiting station. The NG-18 Cygnus spacecraft was named aft Sally Ride, the archetypal U.S. pistillate to scope space, a feat she accomplished successful 1983.

The cargo capsule delivered a divers payload that includes a 3D printer for generating quality tissues, an experimentation connected increasing plants successful space, and the archetypal outer developed by Uganda and Zimbabwe. The freighter volition enactment attached to the ISS until its fiery disposal successful the Earth’s ambiance successful January.

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