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A delivery headed for astronauts on the space station has been delayed.
Launched at 6:11 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 14, fromLaunch Complex 40 in Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the Northrop Grumman Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft was set to dock to the International Space Station Wednesday morning with more than 11,000 pounds of supplies and science.
But the docking did not happen on time.
NASA announced Sept. 16 that the spacecraft had experienced engine trouble on its way to the space station, with the main engine cutting off earlier than planned.
“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,” a statement by NASA read.
NASA said that everything else is performing as expected with the spacecraft.
Once the Cygnus spacecraft does arrive at the International Space Station, astronauts Jonny Kim and Zena Cardman will use the space station’s robotic Canadarm2 to grab and dock it.
This mission — refrred to as NG-23 — is the first flight of the company’s new Cygnus XL spacecraft. It is described as solar-powered, larger and a more capable cargo spacecraft compared to previous Cygnus models, which have flown multiple NASA resupply missions in the past.
It is not the first time a Cygnus spacecraft experienced an issue in flight. In 2022, a Cygnus spacecraft flying as part of the NG-18 mission failed to deploy a solar array, putting the spacecraft’s power levels at risk. Northrop Grumman and NASA were able to work around the issue, and the spacecraft was successfully captured by astronauts onboard the station.
As of the morning of Sept. 17, NASA had not released an update on the current issue.
Brooke Edwards is a Space Reporter for Florida Today. Contact her at bedwards@floridatoday.com or on X: @brookeofstars.
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