Astronauts Raja Chari and Kayla Barron captured the ship using the Canadarm2 manipulator arm
NEW YORK, February 21. /tass/. The American Cygnus cargo ship docked on Monday to the International Space Station (ISS). The broadcast is carried out on the website of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
The docking took place at 15:02 Moscow time. NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Kayla Barron, who are part of the ISS crew, captured the ship using the Canadarm2 manipulator arm and brought it to the airlock of the Unity module.
Cygnus, owned by Northrop Grumman Corporation, delivered more than 3.7 tons of various cargoes to the ISS - food, spare parts and equipment for scientific research. Including for the study of skin aging in zero gravity and the effect of drugs on tumors, as well as a new system for growing plants in orbit.
Undocking is scheduled for May. Loaded with garbage and waste, the device will separate from the station, launch ultra-small CubeSat satellites into orbit and burn up in the dense layers of the atmosphere in about two weeks.
Cygnus was launched using the Antares launch vehicle on February 19 from the spaceport on Wallops Island (Virginia) in the Atlantic Ocean. The Russian RD-181 engine developed by NPO Energomash was used as the first stage of the carrier.
Cargo to the ISS is also delivered from the American side on SpaceX's Dragon ships. Now the watch on board the station, in addition to Chari and Barron, is carried by Russians Anton Shkaplerov and Peter Dubrov, Americans Mark Vande Hai, Tom Marshburn and German Matthias Maurer.