Cygnus commercial cargo spacecraft successfully undocked from the ISS

September 18 at Habré was published the news that the second in the history of a commercial spacecraft (cargo) successfully launched to the ISS. Then he no less successfully docked to the station. The ship itself is called "Signus" (Cygnus). Today, this ship made a successful undock from the ISS, at 05/13 Moscow time.

Signus was carrying 700 kilograms of payload, including clothing, scientific equipment, food and water, onto the ISS. Now the ship is taking to Earth the garbage that the astronauts have filled the cargo hold. From Tuesday to Wednesday, the ship will turn on the engines, and go to Earth, leaving the orbit. Unfortunately, the Signus itself is a disposable spacecraft that will burn in the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. Anyway, so planned.
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The company owning the ship is Orbital Sciences Corporation, and the current flight Signus is the first for this ship. It is worth noting that this is the second in the history of a private space cargo ship that flew to the ISS. The first was the Dragon from SpaceX.

Of course, the ship makes flights for a reason - the company has a contract with NASA, for 1.9 billion dollars. According to this contract, "Signus" will fly to the ISS for another three years, he will have 10 flights.

As you can see, private astronautics is becoming popular, and the number of projects in this direction is increasing, plus most of them are successful. It remains to wait until the " Grasshopper " will be able to carry out their own flight into outer space, the benefit, it is - a reusable spacecraft.

Via nasaspaceflight