We’re quite used to seeing things blast off from Earth en route to the International Space Station (ISS). We’re a little less accustomed to seeing what happens when cargo arrives. That changes today. Check out this brief video showing the careful connection of the ISS’ Canadarm2 robotic arm and Cygnus cargo spacecraft late last night.
The operation, shown in the tweet below, looks like a slow, sedate one. But that’s deceptive, mostly because of the size of the object in the back (Earth). The fact that everything concerned is moving at the same speed (a little over 27,000km/h) also makes this capture seem almost unremarkable.
We have ISS-ues
The @NorthropGrumman #Cygnus space freighter was captured with the @CSA_ASC #Canadarm2 robotic arm controlled by @Astro_Raja at 4:44am ET today. More… https://t.co/LGixnrDZwW pic.twitter.com/FPz7n9RvQk
— International Space Station (@Space_Station) February 21, 2022
Of course, the robotic arm being piloted by astronaut Raja Chari isn’t whipping along at that speed. No, just the Cygnus cargo pod that was launched over the weekend and the ISS are moving at almost 30,000km/h. Connecting the two objects together is a somewhat delicate operation because there aren’t really do-overs in space. Only explosions.
The Cygnus spacecraft, made by Northrop Grumman, launched to the ISS from the States on Saturday on an Antares rocket. The rocket itself is designed specifically for Cygnus craft. To date, the rocket series has seen a single failure from sixteen total launches. The cargo pod brought up 3,765kg of scientific equipment, new experiments (including one from Colgate-Palmolive), and other supplies.
Cygnus-17 successfully docked with the ISS last night. It joins several other spacecraft presently attached to the space station. There’s a SpaceX Crew Dragon and three Russian craft (Progress 79, Progress 80, and Soyuz MS-19) keeping it company.