Northrop Grumman’s robotic cargo ship Cygnus will arrive at the International Space Station (ISS) early Tuesday morning (August 6), and you can watch the rendezvous live.
Cygnus, which launched on Sunday (August 4) aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, is scheduled to be captured by the space station’s robotic arm at 3:10 a.m. Tuesday (7:10 a.m. GMT).
You can watch the event live on Space.com, courtesy of NASA, beginning Tuesday at 1:30 a.m. EDT (5:30 a.m. GMT).
The Cygnus, named SS Richard “Dick” Scobee after the commander of the space shuttle Challenger’s tragic STS-51-L mission, is carrying about 8,200 pounds (3,720 kilograms) of food, scientific equipment and other supplies to the ISS.
Related: Facts about the Northrop Grumman Cargo Ship Cygnus
Among the experiments is Rotifer-B2, which studies how spaceflight affects the DNA repair mechanisms of rotifers. Adineta Vaga.
“These tiny but complex organisms are known for their ability to survive harsh conditions, including radiation levels up to 100 times higher than those that human cells can withstand,” NASA officials said in the paper. Current Cargo Mission DescriptionThis is known as NG-21, as it is the 21st flight by the Cygnus spacecraft to the ISS.
Rotifer-B2 “has the potential to improve our general understanding of DNA damage and repair mechanisms for applications on Earth,” the researchers added.
The SS Richard “Dick” Scobee hasn’t had a perfectly smooth flight to the ISS so far: Shortly after deploying from the Falcon 9 upper stage on Sunday, the cargo ship missed a scheduled engine ignition. Then, 50 minutes later, Cygnus detected pressure readings that were slightly lower than expected, causing it to abort the planned ignition.
But Northrop Grumman engineers evaluated the data and determined that the pressure measurements were within acceptable limits after all, NASA officials said. Updated today (August 5th)Cygnus has conducted two engine burns to date and is on track for rendezvous with the ISS, the researchers added.
