Cygnus arrives safely at International Space Station

On 22 April the Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo ship was successfully captured by the International Space Station and was bolted into place on the Earth-facing port of the Unity module. The spacecraft will spend about three months on station before it is released in July for a destructive re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, disposing of several thousand pounds of trash.

The spacecraft’s arrival brings more than 7,600 pounds of research and supplies to support Expedition 51 and 52. 

Aboard the Cygnus are 3 experimental payloads contributed to by ACSER (UNSW Sydney):

• VKI's QB50 project: UNSW-EC0 Cubesat (ACSER)
• VKI's QB50 project: INSPIRE-2 Cubesat (University of Sydney, ACSER, ANU)
• Biarri Cubesat Mission (DSTGroup project, GPS payload by ACSER)

 The QB50 satellites are due for deployment from the ISS in mid to late May 2017.