US Cargo Spacecraft Cygnus Released from ISS

February 10, 2019 November 12, 2019

The US cargo spacecraft Cygnus was released from the International Space Station (ISS) on 8^th February.

The Cygnus is an American automated cargo spacecraft developed by Orbital Sciences.
It is built and launched by the Northrop Grumman (an American global aerospace and defense technology company).
It is part of NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) developmental program. The COTS is a NASA program started in 2006 that coordinates the delivery of crew and cargo to the International Space Station by private companies
The departure of Cygnus is a part of Expedition 58

The ISS is a habitable artificial satellite in LEO or Low Earth Orbit
With its first component being launched into orbit in 1998, its first long-term residents started arriving since 2000
The ISS has to be serviced time to time by various spacecrafts : Soyuz and Progress (Russian); Dragon and Cygnus (American), H-II Transfer Vehicle and Space Shuttle (American spacecraft that has been retired in 2011); Automated Transfer Vehicle (European spacecraft that retired in 2014)
These aircrafts bring cargo and astronauts to the ISS in proper time interval.

It is the 58^th Expedition of the ISS
On December 3, 2018, cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko (commander) and astronauts Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques (flight engineers) were launched to the ISS onboard the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft.
Numerous science and research studies have been carried out including the Refrabicator.
The Refabricator is the first-ever 3D printer and recycler that will be integrated into a user-friendly machine which will be installed in the ISS. It will recycle waste plastic and previous 3D parts into high-quality filament or 3D printer “ink”