Cygnus private cargo spacecraft that flew to the ISS in mid-January was undocked from the American Harmony module to perform controlled flight, – NASA representative reported.
NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins with the help of japanese colleague Koichi Wakata undocked the spacecraft using Canadarm manipulator.
Cygnys spacecraft designed by Orbital Sciences company was the second private spacecraft after Dragon made by SpaceX.
This time he flew to the ISS for the second time, the first flight that was demonstrational took place in september 2013.
Cygnus started his first of 8 planned flights on January 9. The spacecraft delivered about 1,46 tons of cargo to the ISS including scientific equipment, foodstuffs and clothes for the crew, tools for EVA and computer components. Besides the vehicle brought to the ISS 33 small satellites of CubeSat series and artificial an-hill for biological experiments.
The astronauts filled the spacecraft with trash, on February 19 at about 17.00 Moscow time the engines will be ignited for deorbiting and Cygnus spacecraft will burn in the dense atmosphere above Pacific region.
Image credit – NASA
