Northrop Grumman’s new Cygnus XL spacecraft will no longer dock with the International Space Station Wednesday morning as originally planned.
In a blog post Tuesday evening, NASA announced that two, orbit-raising burns of the spacecraft’s main engine “stopped earlier than planned.” The agency didn’t state how much of the planned burns were able to be performed prior to the premature shutdowns.
NASA also didn’t indicate what may have caused the engine to not perform as expected.
While mission managers review plans to conduct the remaining rendezvous maneuvers, the agency said, “All other Cygnus XL systems are performing normally,” but didn’t offer further details.
NASA astronaut Jonny Kim was originally scheduled to capture the Cygnus XL spacecraft at 6:35 a.m. EDT (1035 UTC) alongside fellow NASA astronaut Zena Cardman. Kim is tasked with commanding the Canadarm2 robotic arm to attach to the vehicle while it’s about 10 meters (32.8 ft) from the ISS.
The Cygnus XL spacecraft, named the S.S. William ‘Willie’ C. McCool launched from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 6:11 p.m. (2211 UTC) on Sunday, Sept. 14. The cargo ship successfully separated from the rocket’s upper stage more than 14 minutes after liftoff.
NASA reported that the vehicle was able to deploy its two solar arrays roughly an hour and a half after departing from the space coast.
A day before that launch, an uncrewed Russian Progress vehicle arrived at the space station on Saturday on a planned cargo supply run.
What’s at stake?
This mission, NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 23 or NG-23 for short, is the debut of the Cygnus XL. As the name suggests, it’s a larger version of the Cygnus spacecraft. It’s about 1.6 meters (5.2 ft) longer and can support about 2,600 pounds of additional cargo.
“It’s got 33 percent more capacity than the prior Cygnus spacecraft had,” said Ryan Tinter, vice president of Civil Space Systems for Northrop Grumman prior to the launch. “Obviously, more may sound like better, but it’s really critical because we can deliver significantly more science as well as we’re able to deliver a lot more cargo per launch, really trying to drive down the cost per kilogram to NASA.”
The Cygnus XL is carrying more than 11,000 pounds (4,990 kg) of food, science and supplies onboard.
“The NG-23 vehicle is packed with consumables, like nitrogen, oxygen, food and toilet parts. And it has a large number of spare parts that are required for systems, for example, like our urine processor,” said Dina Contella, the deputy manager of NASA’s ISS Program, during a prelaunch briefing on Friday. “We’re stocking up on these items since we were short over the past year and we’d like to have a good reserved for the future.”
NASA had to shuffle its planned cargo schedule early this year due to another Cygnus spacecraft. The vehicle earmarked for the NG-22 mission was damaged while being shipped from Northrop Grumman’s facilities in Virginia down to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
That mission was scheduled to launch in June 2025, so to compensate, NASA adjusted the cargo load on SpaceX’s CRS-32 mission to “add more consumable supplies and food to help ensure sufficient reserves of supplies aboard the station.” The agency also pulled SpaceX’s CRS-33 and the NG-23 missions forward on the schedule to close the gap between cargo runs to the ISS.
“In general, what we’ve done historically is we like to have four months of supplies onboard. And the goal is really, if you have a problem with the next mission, if for some reason that can’t fly, you can make it to the mission after that,” said Dana Weigel, manager of NASA’s ISS Program, following the Aug. 1 launch of the Crew-11 mission to the space station.
“When Northrop Grumman found the spacecraft problem on the NG-22 and realized that it couldn’t fly this year, we quickly adjusted the SpaceX 32 mission. It was unfortunate we had to pull off quite a bit of research, but what I did was load it up with food and water and other consumables,” she explained. “That doesn’t quite get me where I need to be to handle skipping a mission. Once I get [SpX-33] up there, then I’ll be closer to the position where if my next flight doesn’t make it, then I can get all the way to the one after. So, that’s really the strategy.”
The SpX-33 mission, also referred to as CRS-33, successfully launched from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral on Aug. 24 and autonomously docked to the space station less than 29 hours later on Aug. 25.
Not the first CRS mishap
Northrop Grumman and SpaceX are the two U.S. companies currently delivering cargo to the ISS as part of the Commercial Resupplies Services 2 contract with NASA. Sierra Space was also awarded a CRS-2 contract for a minimum of seven uncrewed cargo missions to the ISS with its Dream Chaser spaceplane. However, it has not launched yet and it remains unclear when it’s first launch will occur.
To date, SpaceX completed 31 flights with one Cargo Dragon vehicle currently on station. Northrop Grumman has successfully completed 20 cargo flights. Both companies experienced in-flight anomalies early in their flight history.
SpaceX launches its Dragon spacecraft with its Falcon 9 rockets. Northrop Grumman is also using the Falcon 9 to get to orbit while it continues development of its Antares 330 rocket in partnership with Firefly Aerospace. Its first launch is anticipated in 2026.
Meanwhile, the next cargo mission on the schedule, following the planned arrival of the NG-23 Cygnus XL, is another new spacecraft called the HTV-X. It is being supplied by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries with support from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
The HTV-X is scheduled to launch on an H3 rocket from Japan on Oct. 21.
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