Blogs

Cygnus NG-16 Departure: On Saturday, November 20th, NG-16 was unberthed from the Node 1 nadir CBM, maneuvered and then released by the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) at 10:01 am CST. Cygnus will deorbit on Wednesday, Dec. 15, following a deorbit engine firing to set up a destructive re-entry. The spacecraft, filled with waste …

The launch readiness date for the James Webb Space Telescope is moving to no earlier than Dec. 22 to allow for additional testing of the observatory, following a recent incident that occurred during Webb's launch preparations. The incident occurred during operations at the satellite preparation facility in Kourou, French Guiana, performed under Arianespace overall responsibility. …

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft is now encapsulated in the SpaceX payload fairings. Technicians with SpaceX installed the two halves of the fairing around the spacecraft over the course of two days, Nov. 16 and 17, inside the SpaceX Payload Processing Facility at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The payload fairing serves …

The International Space Station is gearing up for a new Russian docking module due to arrive on Friday. In the meantime, the Expedition 66 residents focused on a variety of human research and space physics aboard the orbital lab today. Russia’s newest docking port, the Prichal module, sits atop a rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome …

Weather is 90% go for the DART launch on Nov. 23, with only a 10% of violation (POV) for winds with no other area of concern. POV for backup day is 0% with no area of concern.

At 11:01 a.m. EST, flight controllers on the ground sent commands to release the Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft from the Canadarm2 robotic arm after earlier detaching Cygnus from the Earth-facing port of the Unity module. At the time of release, the station was flying about 260 miles over the South Pacific Ocean. The Cygnus spacecraft …

Live coverage of the departure of Northrop Grumman’s uncrewed Cygnus cargo spacecraft from the International Space Station is underway on NASA Television and the agency’s website, and the NASA app, with its release from the robotic arm scheduled for 11 a.m. Flight controllers on the ground sent commands earlier this morning for the space station’s …

The Expedition 66 crew focused on science, training, and exercise aboard the International Space Station on Friday and prepared for the Cygnus departure tomorrow. NASA Flight Engineers Raja Chari and Kayla Barron continued the GRIP experiment that they began earlier this week. The experiment studies how long-duration spaceflight affects crews’ ability to regulate grip force and upper limbs …

Payloads: Airborne Particulate Monitor (APM): The crew removed the memory card from the APM, transferred the data, and then reinstalled the card.  Air quality in crewed spacecraft is important for keeping astronauts healthy and comfortable. Although requirements exist for maximum allowable concentrations of particulate matter, currently no measurement capability verifies whether these requirements are met.  …