Cygnus Solar Arrays Deployed

Flight controllers have confirmed that the Cygnus spacecraft’s solar arrays have deployed and are providing power.

File photo of a Cygnus cargo spacecraft with UltraFlex solar arrays deployed. This Cygnus was photographed as it departed the International Space Station Dec. 5, 2017, during Expedition 53. Credit: NASA

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft lifted off on the company’s Antares rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore at 4:46 p.m. EDT April 17, 2019.

It will arrive at the International Space Station Friday morning carrying about 7,600 pounds of research investigations and equipment, cargo and supplies that will support some of the hundreds of investigations aboard the orbiting laboratory. The Cygnus spacecraft will be attached to the bottom of the station’s Unity module, where it will remain for about three months.

A postlaunch press conference will take place at 8:15 p.m. on NASA Television and at nasa.gov/live.

Participants:

Joel Montalbano, deputy manager, International Space Station Program
Frank DeMauro, vice president and general manager, Space Systems, Northrop Grumman
Kurt Eberly, Antares vice president at Northrop Grumman

Among the science investigations: testing gels in microgravity as models for growing increasingly complex materials, a new tool to conduct life sciences research with just a few drops of blood, exploring Vascular Aging and the effects of weightlessness on the blood vessels and heart, examining the effects of spaceflight on the function of antibody production, and immune memory, demonstrating the first two of three Astrobee robots, and a technology that tests a method to remove carbon dioxide from air aboard the orbiting outpost.

Learn more about space station activities by following @space_station and @ISS_Research on Twitter as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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