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Cygnus is an expendable American automated cargo spacecraft designed for International Space Station (ISS) resupply missions. It was initially developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation with financial support from NASA under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program.
The spacecraft is an Enhanced Cygnus, named the S.S. Francis R. "Dick" Scobee in honor of the NASA astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. NG-21 is the second launch of a Cygnus spacecraft after Northrop Grumman exhausted the supply of its Antares 230+ rocket.
The mission was the first flight of the enhanced variant of Orbital ATK's Cygnus spacecraft, capable of delivering more than 3,500 kg (7,700 lb) of essential crew supplies, equipment and scientific experiments to the International Space Station (ISS). Total cargo: 3,349 kilograms (7,383 lb) [5] [12] Crew supplies: 1,181 kg (2,604 lb)
The spacecraft was an Enhanced Cygnus, named the S.S. Patricia "Patty" Hilliard Robertson in honor of the NASA astronaut who died in a plane crash prior to being assigned to a crew to fly to the ISS. NG-20 was the first launch of a Cygnus spacecraft after Northrop Grumman exhausted the supply of its Antares 230+ rocket.
Cygnus NG-18 was the seventh Cygnus mission under the Commercial Resupply Services-2 contract. Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems confirmed on 23 February 2021 that Thales Alenia Space of Turin, Italy, will fabricate two additional Pressurized Cargo Modules (PCMs) for a pair of forthcoming Commercial Resupply Services-2 missions.
The Cygnus spacecraft inside the Space Station Processing Facility. This is the seventh of ten flights by Orbital ATK under the Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. This is the fourth flight of the Enhanced-sized Cygnus PCM. [12] [18] The spacecraft and on-board payloads were processed at Kennedy's Space Station Processing Facility.
In an Orbital ATK tradition, this Cygnus spacecraft was named the S.S. Gene Cernan after one of NASA's Apollo astronauts, Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan (1934-2017), the last man (as of 2020) to walk on the Moon and one of only three humans to visit the Moon (in orbit or on the surface) twice. [13]
NG-16 was the fifth Cygnus mission under the Commercial Resupply Services-2 contract. Production and integration of Cygnus spacecraft are performed in Dulles, Virginia.The Cygnus service module is mated with the pressurized cargo module at the launch site, and mission operations are conducted from control centers in Dulles, Virginia and Houston, Texas.