Northrop Grumman successfully launches 3,700kg of science & snacks for NASA to ISS | WATCH

Northrop Grumman successfully launched the Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) with new supplies for the astronauts in space. The Antares 230+ rocket lifted off at 4:02 pm IST from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility with the Cygnus spacecraft loaded with 3,700 kg of cargo. The cargo contains several science experiments and edibles and was launched as part of Northrop's 18th cargo resupply mission (CR18) for NASA. 

The CR18 mission launched successfully in the second attempt as the first one on November 6 was delayed after a fire alarm went off in Northrop Grumman's mission control centre in Dulles, Virginia. It was revealed that both the rocket and the Cygnus spacecraft were healthy as they performed nominally during the launch countdown. In a few hours, Cygnus will dock with the space station and the residents will open the hatch to unload the cargo. 

According to Northrop Grumman, the spacecraft will perform a safe, destructive reentry into Earth’s atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean after its mission is complete. Cygnus was developed by Northrop to provide cargo delivery services under the NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Space Act Agreement. For this mission, the spacecraft was named after the late NASA astronaut Sally Ride who became the first American woman to reach space and is remembered as an advocate for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education.

What is Cygnus transporting?

Apart from food supplies for the astronauts, Cygnus is carrying equipment to study ovarian cells extracted from cows and advancing human tissue printing research. NASA says studying bovine cells in microgravity could improve fertility treatments on Earth and in space. The astronauts would also study mutations in plants to find new ways to grow plants in space and ensure food security for long-term missions. Read more about the experiments here. 

Cygnus also took off with the first satellite from Zimbabwe--ZIMSAT-1-- and the first from Uganda named PEARLAFRICASAT-1 along with TAKA from Japan. These CubeSats form the BIRDS-5 constellation to perform multispectral observations of Earth and demonstrate a high-energy electronic measuring instrument.