Cygnus cargo ship successfully assembled with ISS station

On the morning of January 12, the Cygnus commercial spacecraft of Orbital Sciences Group successfully assembled with the International Space Station (ISS) in its first mission of delivering cargo to this space station.

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Unmanned spacecraft Cygnus began assembling with ISS at 6h08 'on 12 January local time (18h08' in Vietnamese time) and was taken to the Harmony intersection of the cabin at the gate toward Earth, where the assembly process is completed at 8:05 am on the same day (ie 20h05 'Vietnam time).

Cygnus was launched on 9 January from the launch site of the US Aerospace Agency (NASA), in East Virginia, using the Antares missile built by Orbital Sciences.

Cygnus ships are held by the robot arm when arriving at ISS on 12/1.(Photo: AFP / VNA)

Under the $ 1.9 billion cargo service contract with NASA, Orbital Sciences will fly at least eight times to space stations, including on-going flights, until 2016.

During this first flight, Cygnus carried 1,260kg of goods including food, machinery parts and scientific equipment.

Orbital Sciences said the astronauts on ISS will open the Cygnus vessel compartment on January 13-14 to conduct cargo unloading in the coming days.

According to NASA, Cygnus will stay at the ISS station until mid-February, after which it will be destroyed by dropping into the Pacific Ocean.

This will pave the way for the third shipment carried by the Dragon to ISS. Dragon ship was built by California-based Space'X.

David Thompson, President and CEO of Orbital Sciences, stated that "our first trip . was done perfectly" and emphasized "all of our staff has provided Best service for NASA ".