NASA has called off a planned cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) due to a damaged spacecraft.
The spacecraft is a robotic Cygnus freighter, built by the Virginia-based company Northrop Grumman. It had been scheduled to launch several tons of food, fuel and other supplies to the ISS from Florida’s Space Coast this June.
On March 5, however, NASA announced that Cygnus’ shipping container sustained damage during the trip to the launch site. The agency had said mission teams would inspect the freighter over the coming days to determine if Cygnus itself was still intact. That work has now been completed — and there’s some bad news.
“Following initial evaluation, there also is damage to the cargo module,” NASA officials said in an emailed statement on Wednesday afternoon (March 26).
As a result, the June flight has been canceled. But the freighter may not be grounded forever.
“The International Space Station Program will continue working with Northrop Grumman to assess whether the Cygnus cargo module is able to safely fly to the space station on a future flight,” NASA officials added.
The news likely won’t affect the astronauts aboard the orbiting lab in any significant way. NASA had already announced that more food and other consumables would ride up on SpaceX’s next cargo flight, scheduled to launch next month, in case Cygnus couldn’t fly on time.
Related: Facts about Cygnus, Northrop Grumman’s cargo ship
The canceled Cygnus mission was known as NG-22, as it was going to be the 22nd contracted cargo mission that Northrop Grumman flew to the ISS for NASA. The company will now work toward launching NS-23 no earlier than this fall, according to the NASA statement. (The NG-21 Cygnus is currently berthed at the ISS but is scheduled to depart tomorrow morning, March 28).
SpaceX has 32 cargo flights under its belt, and also flies crewed missions to the ISS for NASA.
SpaceX’s Dragon cargo (and crew) capsules are designed to survive the fiery return trip home from orbit, but Cygnus is expendable; it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere at the end of its orbital mission.
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