According to NASA private American cargo vehicle Cygnus successfully docked with the harmony module with the help of manipulator.
Using Canadian manipulator Canadarm the astronauts Steven Swanson and Alexander Gerst moved the spacecraft to the docking node of Harmony module and successfully docked it with the station.
It was the third time Cygnus cargo vehicle designed by Orbital Sciences Company went to the ISS. The first demonstrational flight took place in September 2013, that time it delivered to the ISS about 600 kg of cargoes, primarily, clothes and food for the astronauts.
This flight is the second one of the eight flights planned stipulated by the contract between Orbital and NASA to the amount of 1,9 million dollars concluded in 2008.
In accordance with the contract Orbital is to deliver to the station 20 tons of cargo by 2016. Earlier Company’s Vice President Frank Culbertson reported that Orbital planed to accomplish three Cygnus flights in 2014 – in January, in May and in October and to deliver in total 5,5 tons of cargoes to the ISS.
This time Cygnus delivered to the ISS scientific equipment, foodstuffs and clothes for the crew, tools for EVA and computer hardware. Besides the vehicle delivered to the ISS automatic devices controlling radiation level, light intensity and air quality and the prototype of microsatellite the will be used to send various samples from station, other spacecrafts and planets to the Earth.
On the way back Cygnus will take the trash away from the station and burn in the dense atmosphere.
Cygnus developed by Orbital Sciences company became the second private space vehicle in the world after Dragon designed by SpaceX.
