This week, SpaceX is set to launch a private cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station, and you can watch the event as it happens. A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch Northrop Grumman’s latest robotic Cygnus freighter on Tuesday (Jan. 30) at 12:07 p.m. EST (1707 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. You can watch the launch live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency. Coverage will begin around 11:50 a.m. EST (1650 GMT). For more info on the Cygnus mission, check out Cygnus facts, Northrop Grumman’s cargo ship
Northrop Grumman named this Cygnus vehicle after Patty Hilliard Robertson, a NASA astronaut who died in a private plane crash in 2001. The freighter is carrying over 8,200 pounds (3,720 kilograms) of supplies and scientific hardware. One of the research experiments on board is a cartilage-growing experiment that could help address joint damage and disease here on Earth, as well as a European Space Agency project that will test the 3D printing of metals in microgravity.
If all goes according to plan, today’s launch will see the Falcon 9’s first stage return to Earth for a touchdown at Cape Canaveral about 8 minutes and 15 seconds after launch. It will mark the 10th launch and landing for this particular booster. The Cygnus, on the other hand, will deploy from the Falcon 9’s upper stage 14 minutes and 40 seconds after launch, and then begin its journey to the ISS, arriving around 4:20 a.m. EST (0920 GMT) on Thursday (Feb. 1).
Cygnus is set to spend about six months docked to the ISS, and will later re-enter Earth’s atmosphere for a fiery destruction. During this re-entry, an experiment called the Kentucky Re-entry Probe Experiment-2 will gather data aimed at demonstrating a thermal protection system for spacecraft and their contents during the destruction. Cygnus is one of three robotic cargo craft servicing the ISS, alongside SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and Russia’s Progress vehicle. Unlike Cygnus and Progress, Dragon is reusable, surviving the return trip through Earth’s atmosphere and landing softly in the ocean.
