2024-08-05 13:57:37
(ANSA) – ROME, AUGUST 5 – A new Cygnus supply shuttle for the International Space Station was launched yesterday from Florida. Shortly after launch, the shuttle encountered a problem in igniting its engines, but there is still confidence in the perfect success of the mission, which has on board 3,700 kilograms of materials, including food, fuel and some new scientific experiments and some small cubesat satellites, 10 centimeters on each side, for educational purposes.
The launch took place on Sunday, August 4 at 5:02 p.m. from Cape Canaveral in Florida with a Falcon 9 rocket that, as usual, landed its first stage a few minutes after launch. Once in orbit, Cygnus deployed its solar panels but “the spacecraft missed its first scheduled ignition for 11:44 a.m. (7:44 p.m. Italian time) due to a delay in entering the ignition sequence,” NASA said, however also specifying that “there are no indications that the engine is having problems.” A new ignition of the engines is scheduled in the next few hours and it is hoped that Cygnus will reach the ISS as scheduled, around 9 a.m. on August 6 when it will then be hooked up by the ISS’s robotic arm and docked. This is the 21st Cygnus, the Northrop Grumman cargo shuttle built in part at the Thales Alenia Space facilities in Turin, named after Richard “Dick” Scobee, the NASA astronaut who commanded the ill-fated Sts-51-L mission of the Space Shuttle Challenger that exploded on January 28, 1986 shortly after takeoff. On board are 3.7 tons of materials, including the Rotifer-B2 scientific experiment, which will study the effects of space flight on DNA repair in some rotifers, tiny aquatic animals, and Mvp Cell-07 which aims to 3D print liver tissue. Cygnus will remain docked to the ISS until January 2025 after which it will leave the base to return to Earth and burn up completely in the atmosphere. (ANSA).
2024-08-05 13:57:37