Orbital ATK OA-6 Cygnus Cargo Craft arrives and is berthed to the ISS!

March 27, 2016

Orbital ATK OA-6 Cygnus Cargo Craft arrives and is berthed to the ISS!

 The Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo ship S.S. Rick Husband named after the STS-107 Commander was birth into place on the International Space Station’s Earth-facing port of the Unity module at 10:52 a.m. EDT. (14:52 UTC)

The spacecraft’s arrival will support the crew members’ research in Low Earth Orbit to benefit the Earth. The Cygnus is delivering little more than 7,700 pounds of science and research experiment equipment, crew supplies, food provisions, and vehicle hardware to the orbiting laboratory to support dozens of science and research experiments that will occur during Expeditions 47 and 48.

Beginning with this mission, Cygnus is equipped with a NanoRacks External Cygnus Deployer for 20 Flock-2e CubeSats that will be deployed from Cygnus after the vehicle departs from the ISS.

The spacecraft will spend more than a month attached to the space station before separating from the station. After completion of its primary ISS resupply mission, Cygnus will depart to a safe distance from the station before deploying the satellites, and begin its destructive re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere in May 2016, disposing of about 3,000 pounds of trash.

Enhanced Cygnus Cargo Manifest - OA-6:

Total Cargo: 3,513 kg (7,745 lb) using Enhanced Cygnus

Science Hardware: 1,713 pounds (777 kg)

NASA: ARTE, METEOR, STRATA-I, SPHERES Docking Port, SAFFIRE-I, Additive Manufacturing Facility, Various Combustion Integrated Rack & Human Research Facility Supplies
CSA: MARROW, Vascular Echo
ESA: Airway Monitoring, ENERGY, Fluid Science Laboratory
JAXA: Cell Biology Experiment Facility 1G centrifuge, BLR48, J-SSOD Satellite Deployer, Exposed Facility Unit adapter with GPS Wheel Demo

Crew Supplies: 2,511 pounds (1,139 kg)

169 Cargo Bags of Food Provisions
6 Cargo Bags of Food Provisions for Russian Crew
Hygiene Equipment for Russian Crew
Printing Paper & Ink

Vehicle Hardware: 2,443 pounds (1,108 kg)

MDM Circuit Card Replacement
ECLSS Replacement Parts
Water Sampling Kits
Waste & Hygiene System Replaceable Parts

EVA Equipment: (Spacewalk) gear: 346 pounds (157 kg)

EMU Components: Legs, boots, Hard Upper Torso
METOX Carbon Dioxide Scrubbers
Contamination Detection Equipment

Computer Resources: 216 pounds (98 kg)

Laptop & Printer
Hard Drives & Assorted Cables
Camcorders and Cameras, associated components

SAFFIRE-I, the first Spacecraft Fire Experiment, will intentionally light a large-scale fire inside the Cygnus spacecraft after its departure of ISS, a few days before it re-enters Earth’s atmosphere. Only very few experiments were run to study combustion and fire processes in microgravity, let alone large-scale fire progression within a spacecraft. SAFFIRE was designed to study a realistic fire on a space spacecraft in real-time, looking at flame growth, temperatures differentials and oxygen use to assess how microgravity and limited O2 supplies affect the properties of a fire in Low earth Orbit and beyond. Data from SAFFIRE will be used to improve fire safety on future crewed spacecraft and help NASA in choosing what type of safe materials for future spacecraft. As a former Fire Fighter, this experiment is my favorite. I can not wait to report about this after the experiment has been completed

Photo Credits : NASA/ESA