NG-15 S.S. Katherine Johnson Cygnus departure

Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft, dubbed the S.S. Katherine Johnson, was unberthed from the Earth-facing port of the International Space Station’s Unity module and released by the Canadarm2 robotic arm on 29 June 2021, at 16:32 UTC (12:32 EDT). Once Cygnus reaches a safe distance from the station, the Slingshot small satellite deployer will deploy five CubeSats for a variety of research including atmospheric physics as well as software evaluation and development. The NG-15 Cygnus Cargo Delivery Spacecraft is named in honor of Katherine Johnson, a NASA mathematician that delivered calculations that were critical to the success of numerous human spaceflight missions. Credit: NASA Music: Les Toreadors from Carmen by Bizet courtesy of YouTube Audio Library #Cygnus