{"id":325090,"date":"2026-03-12T01:17:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T01:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/325090\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T01:17:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T01:17:13","slug":"watch-northrop-grummans-1st-cygnus-xl-cargo-spacecraft-leave-the-space-station-on-march-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/325090\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch Northrop Grumman’s 1st ‘Cygnus XL’ cargo spacecraft leave the space station on March 12"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 23 Departure – YouTube
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The first mission of Northrop Grumman’s big new cargo spacecraft is nearly over.<\/p>\n

That freighter, known as Cygnus XL, is scheduled to leave the International Space Station<\/a> (ISS) on Thursday morning (March 12), ending a nearly six-month orbital stay.<\/p>\n

The departure is scheduled for 7:05 a.m. EDT (1105 GMT). You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency<\/a>. Coverage will begin at 6:45 a.m. EDT (1045 GMT).<\/p>\n

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Northrop Grumman\u2019s first Cygnus XL cargo craft is pictured installed to the Unity module\u2019s Earth-facing port as the International Space Station orbited 262 miles (422 kilometers) above the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South Africa. (Image credit: NASA)<\/p>\n

The Cygnus XL launched atop a SpaceX<\/a> Falcon 9 rocket on Sept. 14<\/a>, carrying about 11,000 pounds (4,990 kilograms) of scientific gear and other supplies toward the ISS.<\/p>\n

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That big cargo load explains the new freighter’s name: Earlier versions of Cygnus<\/a> hauled about 8,500 pounds (3,856 kg) to the orbiting lab.<\/p>\n

Cygnus XL had a bit of a hiccup on its debut mission, suffering an engine glitch<\/a> on its way to the station. The spacecraft \u2014 named the S.S. William “Willie” McCool, after one of the seven astronauts who died in the 2003 space shuttle Columbia accident<\/a> \u2014 overcame the problem, however, arriving at the ISS on Sept. 18<\/a>, a day later than originally planned.<\/p>\n

The orbiting outpost’s Canadarm2 grappled Cygnus XL that day, berthing it to the Unity module. The big robotic arm will be at work on Thursday as well, removing S.S. William “Willie” McCool from Unity and then releasing it “into Earth orbit for a fiery, but safe reentry above the South Pacific Ocean two days later,” NASA officials wrote in an update on Tuesday<\/a> (March 10).<\/p>\n

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!<\/p>\n

Cygnus is one of four robotic cargo spacecraft that service the ISS these days, along with SpaceX’s Dragon<\/a> capsule, Russia’s Progress<\/a> vehicle and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) HTV-X. Dragon is reusable, but the other three burn up in Earth’s atmosphere<\/a> when their missions are over.<\/p>\n

HTV-X \u2014 a more advanced version of the Japanese HTV freighter \u2014 just wrapped up its first-ever visit to the orbiting lab, departing on March 6<\/a> after a four-month stay. That cargo craft will remain in orbit as a free flyer for the next three months or so, hosting a suite of JAXA<\/a> science experiments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 23 Departure – YouTube Watch On The first mission of Northrop Grumman’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-325090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-new-zealand","9":"tag-newzealand","10":"tag-nz","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}