NASA lately live streamed the departure of a spaceship from the International Space Station ( ISS ) , but it was n’t Boeing ’s Starliner , which is quell longer than expected at the orbital outpost due to technical issues .
On Friday , the place ’s Canadarm2 machinelike arm come away Northrop Grumman ’s Cygnus spacecraft from the Unity module before gently nudging it aside from the land - orbiting deftness .
The crewless Cygnus vehicle come at the station five - and - a - half month ago , land with it 8,200 Ezra Pound of supply , scientific investigations , commercial-grade products , computer hardware , and other essential freight .
.@northropgrumman ’s Cygnus space freighter was released from the Canadarm2 robotic arm at 7:01am ET today , terminate its five - and - a - one-half month stay at the orbiting research lab . More … https://t.co / F55tLmJiXrpic.twitter.com / fge7xHiav6
& mdash ; International Space Station ( @Space_Station)July 12 , 2024
The spacecraft ’s final chore will postulate the Kentucky Re - introduction Probe Experiment-2 ( KREPE-2 ) , which will take measurements to demonstrate a thermal trade protection system for spacecraft and their contents during reentry into Earth ’s atmosphere , something that ’s hard to replicate in land pretense .
Cygnus has now executed a deorbit engine firing for a planned reentry in which the space vehicle — and all of the ISS garbage stuffed inside it — will safely cauterize up in Earth ’s atmosphere .
Cygnus arrived at the outer space post at the start of February after begin its journey atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 garden rocket in a launch from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida . It was Northrop Grumman ’s 20th commercial-grade resupply military service charge to the post for NASA .
Meanwhile , the Starliner is staying docked at the ISSfor way longer than expected . The spacecraft arrived at the station on its first crewed flight on June 6 , but an outcome with five of its thrusters , along with a act of He leak , has result in the mission being extended beyond the originally planned one hebdomad while engineers seek to gain a greater understanding of what induce the issues .
In a live - streamed media league last week , NASA astronaut Suni Williams , one of the two Starliner crew members , said : “ This is a test flight , so we were wait to find some things , and so we are find stuff and we are correcting it . ”
In a late update , Steve Stich , manager of NASA ’s Commercial Crew Program , point out : “ We ’re take our time on the ground to go through all the data point that we have before we settle on the return opportunity . ”
At the current time , no date has been set for the return of the Starliner and its crew , though there ’s some expectation that it will fly home before the end of July .
