NASA, Northrop Grumman Assessing Cygnus XL Engine Burn Plan

NASA and Northrop Grumman are delaying the arrival of the Cygnus XL to the International Space Station as flight controllers evaluate an alternate burn plan for the resupply spacecraft. The Cygnus XL will not arrive to the space station on Wednesday, Sept. 17, as originally planned, with a new arrival date and time under review.

Early Tuesday morning, Cygnus XL’s main engine stopped earlier than planned during two burns designed to raise the orbit of the spacecraft for rendezvous with the space station, where it will deliver 11,000 pounds of scientific investigations and cargo to the orbiting laboratory for NASA. All other Cygnus XL systems are performing normally.

NASA astronaut Jonny Kim is scheduled to capture Cygnus XL using the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm with backup support from NASA astronaut Zena Cardman. After capture, the spacecraft will be installed on the Unity module’s Earth-facing port and will remain at the space station until March 2026.

The spacecraft launched at 6:11 p.m. on Sept. 14 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The mission is known as NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 23, or Northrop Grumman CRS-23.

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

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