NASA, SpaceX, Northrop Grumman set to launch 21st Cygnus resupply mission

NEW DELHI — NASA, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX plan to launch the next cargo delivery mission to International Space Station on Sunday at 11:02 a.m. EDT (8:30 p.m. Indian Standard Time).

This flight marks the agency’s 21st commercial resupply services mission to the orbiting laboratory using a Northrop Grumman vehicle.

Launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft, loaded with about 8,200 pounds of supplies, will take off from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Cygnus consists of two modules — a Service Module and a Pressurised Cargo Module that carries supplies for the crew, the required equipment and experiments to destinations that come in low-earth orbit. The Service Module has the latest aviation technology developed by Northrop Grumman as well as guidance/navigation components that enable operations like these.

In honour of the late NASA astronaut Richard ‘Dick’ Scobee, this spaceship is known as the S. S. Francis R. ‘Dick’ Scobee, a Vietnam veteran and a member of the 1978 STS 41-C Mission. He was the commander of the ill-fated 1986 Challenger mission where he and his crew perished in space. President George W. Bush conferred the Congressional Space Medal of honour on him posthumously in 2004.

It has been more than a decade since the first operational Cygnus mission was launched, on January 9, 2014, which was named after the astronaut C. Gordon Fullerton who died in 2013, which has since marked a tradition, of continuing being a pioneer in all space missions without forgetting the legendary astronauts that continue to live on in both earth and space.