Cargo craft viewed from above, with Earth in the background.

EarthSky | ISS resupply delayed by Hurricane Nicole

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Cargo ship seen from above, with the Earth in the background.
Earlier this week, another ISS resupply mission – a Cygnus freighter named the SS Sally Ride – limped to the space station with just 1 of 2 solar panels deployed, before being captured by NASA astronaut Nicole Mann, using the robotic arm Canadarm2, on November 9. Image via NASA/ NASA TV/ SciTech Daily.

ISS resupply delayed by Hurricane Nicole

An uncrewed resupply mission to the International Space Station has been rescheduled for Monday, November 21, 2022, at the earliest. As the next launch of the Artemis 1 lunar mission – currently postponed to November 16 – liftoff is delayed due to Hurricane Nicole. NASA said:

The date adjustment is due to the landfall of Hurricane Nicole near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Mission teams will continue to monitor for any additional potential impact as the storm progresses.

The mission marks the station’s 26th commercial resupply. It will be launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 elevating vehicle. An uncrewed Dragon capsule will carry the cargo.

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Expedition 68 unpacking the SS Sally Ride

Currently, the Expedition 68 crew is busy aboard the ISS unpacking cargo from the incoming Cygnus-18, an unmanned craft from Northrop Grumman which arrived at the station on Wednesday, November 9. NASA reported:

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus space freighter is open for business after its successful robotic capture and installation in the Unity module’s Earth-facing port on Wednesday morning. NASA flight engineers Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada were the first to open Cygnus’ hatch and enter the freighter several hours after leak and pressure checks with the vehicle. On Thursday, the duo retrieved science freezers containing research samples from inside Cygnus and installed them on EXPRESS racks inside the space station.

The Cygnus craft was named the SS Sally Ride in honor of the first American woman in space. The Stroll encountered a minor problem with the deployment of its solar panels, but arrived safely and on time at the ISS.

Also focused on Stroll is a new material to keep the lights on at the space station. Next week, NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio will walk outside to install supports for a new set of solar panels, the agency said:

Cassada and Rubio will take the new gear, or power augmentation modification kits, out into the vacuum of space on November 15 and attach it to the starboard lattice segment where half of the main solar arrays of the station. The new module kit works will enable the installation of new deployment solar panels during a pair of spacewalks scheduled for November 28 and December 1, augmenting the laboratory’s power generation system in orbit .

Conclusion: The launch of a supply run to the ISS has been postponed to Monday, November 21, 2022, at the earliest.

David Adelian

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About the Author:

Award-winning journalist and editor Dave Adalian’s love affair with the cosmos began on a summer school trip long ago to the legendary and venerable Lick Observatory atop California’s Mount Hamilton, east of San Jose in the misty Diablos mountain range and high above Monterey Bay to the edge of the endless blue Pacific Ocean. This field trip continues today, as Dave still pursues his nocturnal adventures, perched in the dark at the eyepiece of his telescope or chasing errant stars across the fields of night as an observer at the naked eye. A lifelong resident of California’s Tulare County – an agricultural paradise where the Greater San Joaquin Valley meets the Sierra Nevada over endless miles of grass-covered foothills – Dave grew up in a wilderness bigger than Delaware and the Rhode Island United, a smothered with the greatest diversity of flora and fauna in the United States, which spends its nights under dark skies soaring above some of the highest mountain peaks and largest areas without roads of the North American continent. Dave studied English, American Literature, and Mass Communications at the College of the Sequoias and the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has worked as a reporter and editor for a number of online and offline news publications over a career spanning almost 30 years to date. His dearest literary hope is to share his passion for astronomy and all things cosmic with all who wish to join in the adventure and explore the past, present and future of the universe.

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