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Northop Grumman's robotic Cygnus cargo ship launched toward the ISS this morning (Nov. 7) from Virginia, packed with more than 4.1 tons (3.7 metric tons) of food and other supplies for the astronauts aboard the orbiting lab. The launch went smoothly, but Cygnus encountered some trouble after separating from its Antares rocket ride: The freighter has managed to unfurl just one of its two solar arrays. Mission team members are working to troubleshoot the glitch, but Cygnus may still be able to power its way to the space station for a scheduled Wednesday (Nov. 9) meetup even if a fix...

The Cygnus spacecraft, which was launched on an Antares rocket, is scheduled to arrive at the space station around 4:35 a.m. on Monday, February 21. NASA Television, the NASA app, and agency’s website will provide live coverage of the spacecraft’s approach and arrival beginning at 3 a.m. The spacecraft will then be installed on the Earth-facing port of the station’s Unity module. This is Northrop Grumman’s 17th contracted resupply mission under the second Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. The delivery includes critical materials to support dozens of the more than 250 science and research investigations occurring during NASA’s Expedition...

After a 36 hour phasing profile, the S.S. Ellison Onizuka cargo ship, part of Northrop Grumman’s NG-16 mission, has arrived at the International Space Station (ISS). Safely in the grip of Canadarm2, Cygnus was attached to the nadir port of the Unity (Node-1) module for the multi-month cargo delivery and removal process. Delivering a total of 3,723 kg of crew supplies, unpressurized cargo, science experiments, spacewalk equipment, station hardware, and computer equipment, the NG-16 mission is the fifth of six guaranteed flights to the station under the CRS2.. While only one flight, remains per the original CRS2 guarantee, NASA has...

If you’re not in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region, you can also watch live coverage of the Cygnus launch on NASA TV and the agency’s website. TV coverage begins Sunday at 22:00 UTC (5 p.m. EST). This will be Northrop Grumman’s 13th commercial resupply mission to ISS using its Cygnus cargo spacecraft. The spacecraft will be loaded with approximately 8,000 pounds (3,600 kg) of research, crew supplies, and hardware. The Cygnus spacecraft will arrive at the space station on Tuesday, February 11. ISS astronauts will capture Cygnus with the station’s robotic arm and install the spacecraft. Cygnus is scheduled to stay...

Acquiring space launch company Orbital ATK in an all-cash $7.8 billion merger, Northrop took possession of Orbital's Minotaur and Antares medium-lift rocket families. It acquired Orbital's ongoing project to build a new "OmegA" class heavy lift rocket as well, with which to compete against the likes of United Launch Alliance and SpaceX for large commercial and military satellite launches. Northrop Grumman also inherited Orbital's ongoing NASA contract to resupply crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) with needed consumables under the agency's CRS-1 and CRS-2 "Commercial Resupply Services" contracts -- missions valued at as much as $14 billion across the...

Giacobini-Zinner’s return in 2018 is a promising one as it passes the Earth at a distance of 0.39 au. In June, 2018, 21p will be observable from modest sized telescopes sitting in the constellation of Cygnus reaching a brightness of magnitude 11 by month end. Although for many in the northern hemisphere, the sky will not reach true astronomical darkness all month. Between 17-21 June, the comet will skim past the ‘Mexico’ region of the North America nebula making for a nice widefield shot for photographers (again battling the twilight). The comet will then brighten rapidly through July and August by which time...

At the beginning of the 3rd century civil war raged in Britain as the Roman emperor Septimius Severus sought to quell unrest in the north. But unknown to the fighting cohorts and Caledonian tribes, high above their heads two stars were coming together in a huge cataclysmic explosion. Now 1800 years later the light from that collision will finally arrive on Earth creating a new star in the night sky - dubbed the ‘Boom Star - in an incredibly rare event which is usually only spotted through telescopes. Before their meeting the two stars were too dim to be seen...

An Orbital ATK Antares rocket will launch a commercial Cygnus cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station from Virginia's Eastern Shore before dawn on Monday, and the launch could be visible to potentially millions of spectators along the U.S. East Coast. The Antares rocket is scheduled to launch at 4:39 a.m. EDT (0839 GMT) on Monday (May 21) and should be highly visible across the East Coast of the United States, weather permitting. The mission, called OA-9, will launch from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to deliver more than 3 tons of supplies to...

In a clean room inside a clean room at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, a petite telescope is perched on a stand for a final series of checkouts prior to launch. The extra fastidiousness is because the observatory’s four cameras will fly without protective covers—one of several simplifying design decisions made to help ensure the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, will meet its goal of measuring the masses of at least 50 small, rocky and potentially Earth-like worlds as part of the first all-sky, exoplanet survey. TESS was proposed even before NASA’s planet-hunting Kepler space telescope, launched in 2009, demonstrated...

A team of astronomers is making a bold forecast: A binary star found in the summer constellation Cygnus the swan will burst into a red nova sometime in 2022. When the two stars in the binary system crash into one another, they will create a brick-red beacon so bright that sky gazers will see it with the naked eye, Larry Molnar of Calvin College said Friday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Grapevine, Tex. As the constellation Cygnus glides gracefully along the Milky Way every late spring and summer, the cosmic bird’s left wing houses a faint binary star...

Explanation: NGC 6888, also known as the Crescent Nebula, is a cosmic bubble about 25 light-years across, blown by winds from its central, bright, massive star. This sharp telescopic portrait uses narrow band image data that isolates light from hydrogen and oxygen atoms in the wind-blown nebula. The oxygen atoms produce the blue-green hue that seems to enshroud the detailed folds and filaments. Visible within the nebula, NGC 6888's central star is classified as a Wolf-Rayet star (WR 136). The star is shedding its outer envelope in a strong stellar wind, ejecting the equivalent of the Sun's mass every 10,000...

Explanation: The prominent ridge of emission featured in this sharp, colorful skyscape is cataloged as IC 5067. Part of a larger emission nebula with a distinctive shape, popularly called The Pelican Nebula, the ridge spans about 10 light-years following the curve of the cosmic pelican's head and neck. This false-color view also translates the pervasive glow of narrow emission lines from atoms in the nebula to a color palette made popular in Hubble Space Telescope images of star forming regions. Fantastic, dark shapes inhabiting the 1/2 degree wide field are clouds of cool gas and dust sculpted by the winds...

Sorry, E.T. lovers, but the results of a new study make it far less likely that KIC 8462852, popularly known as Tabby's star, is the home of industrious aliens who are gradually enclosing it in a vast shell called a Dyson sphere. Public interest in the star, which sits about 1,480 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, began last fall when Yale astronomer Tabetha ("Tabby") Boyajian and colleagues posted a paper on an astronomy preprint server reporting that "planet hunters" - a citizen science group formed to search data from the Kepler space telescope for evidence of exoplanets - had...

Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). Acknowledgment: R. Sahai and J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This is a final act of celestial beauty before the long fade into cosmic history. Invisibly buried in the centre of this colourful swirl of gas is a dying star, roughly the same mass as the sun. As a star ages, the nuclear reactions that keep it shining begin to falter. This uncertain energy generation causes the stars to pulsate in an irregular way, casting off its outer layers into space. As the star sheds these outer gases, the super-hot core...

NASA has selected SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Sierra Nevada Corp. to fly cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) starting in 2019, the agency announced today (Jan 14). Between 2019 and 2024, NASA will purchase a minimum of six uncrewed cargo missions from each of the three companies, agency officials said in a media briefing today. The space agency has the option to purchase additional re-supply missions from any of the three providers, and will likely do so, said Kirk Shireman, program manager for the ISS. SpaceX and Orbital ATK were selected as cargo providers in NASA's first round of...

The Orbital ATK Cygnus CRS-4 resupply vessel arrived in the vicinity of the massive orbiting outpost around 530 a.m. EST today with pinpoint accuracy after precisely firing its maneuvering thrusters to home in on the complex during a two day orbital chase. After moving close in to the station, NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren deftly grappled the Cygnus - named the "S.S. Deke Slayton II" - with the space station 57-foot-long robotic arm, Canadarm2, at 6:19 a.m. EST, while operating the arm from a robotics work station inside the seven windowed domed cupola. The entire sequence was broadcast live on NASA...

Explanation: Chaotic in appearance, these filaments of shocked, glowing gas break across planet Earth's sky toward the constellation of Cygnus, as part of the Veil Nebula. The Veil Nebula itself is a large supernova remnant, an expanding cloud born of the death explosion of a massive star. Light from the original supernova explosion likely reached Earth over 5,000 years ago. Blasted out in the cataclysmic event, the interstellar shock waves plow through space sweeping up and exciting interstellar material. The glowing filaments are really more like long ripples in a sheet seen almost edge on, remarkably well separated into the...

Explanation: In cosmic brush strokes of glowing hydrogen gas, this beautiful skyscape unfolds across the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy and the center of the northern constellation Cygnus the Swan. The featured image spans about six degrees. Bright supergiant star Gamma Cygni (Sadr) to the upper left of the image center lies in the foreground of the complex gas and dust clouds and crowded star fields. Left of Gamma Cygni, shaped like two luminous wings divided by a long dark dust lane is IC 1318, whose popular name is understandably the Butterfly Nebula. The more compact, bright nebula at...

The spacecraft will haul approximately 3,600 kilograms (4 tons) of material in a pressurized cargo module to the International Space Station in December 2015. This is the fourth Commercial Resupply Services cargo run by Orbital Sciences (OA-4). The Cygnus spacecraft is developed and produced by Orbital Sciences. Historically, it has always launched on an Orbital Antares rocket, but that rocket is still grounded for safety upgrades following the unscheduled rapid disassembly last fall. Instead, the Cygnus will be launched by a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. It will also be launching from a new pad — Cape Canaveral instead...

Explanation: Stars can form in colorful surroundings. Featured here is a star forming region rich in glowing gas and dark dust toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus), near the bright star Sadr. This region, which spans about 50 light years, is part of the Gamma Cygni nebula which lies about 1,800 light years distant. Toward the right of the image is Barnard 344, a dark and twisted dust cloud rich in cool molecular gas. A dramatic wall of dust and red-glowing hydrogen gas forms a line down the picture center. While the glowing red gas is indicative of small...