Crews completed the installation process shortly after 8 a.m. after astronauts on the ISS snagged the S.S. Sally Ride Cygnus spacecraft with its robotic arm earlier Wednesday, successfully bringing in some 8,200 pounds of scientific investigations and cargo on board.
Astronaut Nicole Mann with the help of fellow astronaut Josh Cassada plucked the Northrop Grumman-made resupply spacecraft without a hitch with the docking with the station's Unity module later Wednesday morning. The space station and spacecraft were above the Indian Ocean when the capture happened.
The spaceship left the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia early Monday for the International Space Station.
On its way to the space station, Northrop Grumman said just one of the spacecraft's two solar arrays deployed but assured it had sufficient power to make its way to ISS.
Some of the experiments being delivered by the flight include bioprinting tests to see if microgravity enables the printing of tissue samples of higher quality than those printed on the ground as well as tests to examine the development of plants in space and observe ovarian cell development in microgravity.
Another investigation also could help develop and validate models to predict the spread and velocity of debris flow after natural disasters.
The spaceship also carries the first satellites from Uganda and Zimbabwe as part of the Joint Global Multi-Nation Birds Project-5, which could help distinguish bare ground from forest and farmland and possibly indicate the quality of agricultural growth.
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