Cygnus Rendezvous Postponed to Saturday

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Cygnus Rendezvous Postponed to No Earlier Than Saturday

Managers from Orbital Sciences and NASA decided Monday morning to postpone the approach, rendezvous, grapple and berthing operations of Orbital's Cygnus cargo logistics spacecraft with the International Space Station to no earlier than Saturday, Sept. 28. Cygnus' rendezvous now will follow the launch and arrival of three crew members of Expedition 37/38 on Wednesday, Sept. 25. Michael Hopkins of NASA and Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) will depart from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:58 p.m. EDT and arrive at the space station at 10:47 p.m.

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Space Station Live: Cygnus Rendezvous With Station Delayed

NASA Public Affairs Officer Brandi Dean talks with NASA Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Project Executive Bruce Manners via telephone to discuss the Cygnus' delayed rendezvous with the International Space Station.

Managers from Orbital Sciences and NASA decided Monday morning to postpone the approach, rendezvous, grapple and berthing operations of Orbital's Cygnus cargo logistics spacecraft with the International Space Station to no earlier than Saturday, Sept. 28. Cygnus' rendezvous now will follow the launch and arrival of three crew members of Expedition 37/38 on Wednesday, Sept. 25. Michael Hopkins of NASA and Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) will depart from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 4:58 p.m. EDT and arrive at the space station at 10:47 p.m.

Orbital has confirmed that over the past 24 hours, the Orbital team developed and tested a software fix for the data format mismatch that necessitated a postponement of the first rendezvous operation that was scheduled for the early morning of Sunday, Sept. 22. However, that process, together with the impending Soyuz crew operations, resulted in a tight schedule to the point that both Orbital and NASA felt it was the right decision to postpone the Cygnus approach and rendezvous until after Soyuz operations.

An exact schedule for Cygnus will be determined following the successful completion of Soyuz operations. For the latest information about Cygnus and Orbital's demonstration cargo resupply mission, visit Orbital's page at: http://www.orbital.com/Antares-Cygnus

Watch the full Space Station Live broadcast weekdays on NASA TV at 10 a.m. CDT. http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

Credit: NASA

Source: NASA - Multimedia