One of NASA's core shippers Orbital ATK recently launched a special delivery of supplies to the Space Station from Virginia.
More than three tons of shipment (approximately 7,400 pounds) launched from Wallops Island on Monday, May 21, and was received by the International Space Station just three days later. Orbital ATK shipped the supplies, science experiments, equipment, and more in a Cygnus capsule, which was then snatched by NASA astronauts Scott Tingle and Ricky Arnold through the station's giant robot arm at approximately 5:26 a.m. (EDT) Thursday morning. "Excellent job, guys," Mission Control said over the radio. "You've got a whole team down here in Houston with big smiles on their faces," along with the Orbital ATK controllers in Dulles, Virginia. https://twitter.com/Space_Station/status/999585159492980738
"There's always good on board," said Kirk Shireman, NASA's space station program manager. "We try to fly something that each crewmember likes."
Once all of the food and equipment have been unloaded, they will then fill the Cygnus capsule with trash and will be commanded to intentionally burn up in the Earth's atmosphere upon re-entry. However, prior to it burning, the capsule will deploy small satellites, or cubesats, as part of its mission.
The Space Station is home to six astronauts that make up the Expedition 55 crew, including Americans Scott Tingle, Ricky Arnold, and Drew Feustel, Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Anton Shkaplerov, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Norishige Kanai.
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