NASA, Northrop Grumman, and SpaceX are set to launch the next cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station on Sunday at 11:02 a.m. EDT (8:30 p.m. Indian Standard Time). This mission marks the agency’s 21st commercial resupply services flight to the orbiting laboratory, utilizing a Northrop Grumman vehicle.
The mission will see the Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft, carrying approximately 8,200 pounds of supplies, launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Cygnus is composed of two modules: the Service Module and the Pressurized Cargo Module. The Pressurized Cargo Module transports supplies for the crew, along with necessary equipment and experiments to destinations in low-Earth orbit. The Service Module incorporates the latest aviation technology developed by Northrop Grumman, as well as guidance and navigation components that facilitate such operations.
This spacecraft, named the S.S. Francis R. ‘Dick’ Scobee in honor of the late NASA astronaut Richard ‘Dick’ Scobee, pays tribute to a Vietnam veteran and member of the 1978 STS 41-C mission. Scobee was the commander of the tragic 1986 Challenger mission, where he and his crew lost their lives. In 2004, President George W. Bush posthumously awarded him the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.
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The first operational Cygnus mission launched over a decade ago, on January 9, 2014. Named after astronaut C. Gordon Fullerton, who passed away in 2013, this tradition of naming spacecraft after legendary astronauts continues, ensuring their legacies endure both on Earth and in space.
