Private truck Cygnus after a week delay dock with the ISS - Reuters

MOSCOW, Sept. 29 – RIA Novosti. link private space truck Cygnus to the International Space Station (ISS), postponed last week due to a failure in the onboard software, is now scheduled for Sunday, all the ship’s systems are working properly, according to NASA and the company Orbital Sciences – developer of the device.

Cygnus spacecraft was launched into orbit on September 18. Rocket “Antares” successfully launched from Baikonur on Wallops Island, and experts have begun to carry out a series of tests the ship, in which it was found that these GPS, which passed the ship when trying to establish a direct link with the ISS differ from these estimates. Specialists have found the reason: the gap between data formats of time. Originally docking was delayed for two days, but then it was decided to postpone until Sunday due to docking, “the Union”, which was held successfully on 26 September.

For several days, the group of specialists working with Cygnus, developed, tested and loaded on board software “patch” that eliminate the discrepancy.

Friday night Cygnus was about 2.4 thousand kilometers behind the ISS, then he began a series of maneuvers that should bring it closer to the point of beginning of the station, which is located 4 kilometers below the ISS. After all the ship’s systems will be checked and all the experts will give “good” vehicle will rise to the next “step” – 1.5 kilometers, then 250 meters below the station. After a few more stops Cygnus gets to a point 12 meters away from the ISS.

Here, the European Astronaut Luca Parmitano with the assistance of NASA astronaut Carey Nyberg catch “Swan” manipulator station and then docked it to the docking port of the module Harmony. It is expected that the ship will be captured at 15.15 MSK, and at 19.20 docking is completed. The ship will stay in the ISS for about a month, then it will load debris and undock, after which it will enter the atmosphere and burn up.

Cygnus, developed by Orbital Sciences under contract with NASA to deliver cargo to the ISS, the second in the history of private space truck. The ship should be delivered to the ISS about 600 kilograms of cargo.

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