Northrop Grumman Demos Space Station Reboost Capability

One week after berthing to the International Space Station (ISS), Northrop Grumman’s 19th NASA-contracted Cygnus resupply capsule fired its delta velocity thruster for 22 min., 48 sec. early Aug. 11 to raise the station’s orbit.

Berthed to the Earth-facing port of the station’s U.S. Unity module, Cygnus is to maneuver the ISS several times over its 90-day stay as part of a certification process to augment the ISS altitude raising and orbital debris avoidance capabilities currently provided by Russian Soyuz and Progress vehicles.

The maneuver raised the apogee, or high point, of the ISS by 3/10ths of a mile and the perigee, or low point, by 2.8 mi., to achieve a 262.5-by-257.6-mi. orbit, according to a NASA update.

Launched late Aug. 1 from NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, the Cygnus resupply craft reached the ISS early Aug. 4 to deliver more than 8,200 lb. of crew supplies, scientific research and technology development hardware.

The Cygnus reboost on Aug. 11 at 10:35 a.m. EDT also helped to refine the phasing for the launch and arrival of a Roscosmos, or Russian space agency Progress resupply mission planned for an Aug. 22 launch and Aug. 24 docking.

A second reboost maneuver is planned to accommodate the scheduled Sept. 15 arrival of Soyuz MS-24 with two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut for a six-month tour of duty, as well as the Sept. 27 departure of the Soyuz MS-23 with NASA astronaut Frank Rubio; cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev, the current ISS commander; and cosmonaut Dmitry Petelin.

The trio will be concluding a 371-day mission that was extended due to a Dec. 14, 2022, external coolant leak aboard the Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft that launched them on Sept. 21, 2022, for what was to be a six-month mission. The damaged Soyuz capsule was deorbited without crew and replaced with Soyuz MS-23, which was launched without crew on board.

The source of the leak is believed to be an orbital debris impact.