Northrop Grumman’s NG-10 Cygnus spacecraft has departed the International Space Station after three months at the orbiting complex.
Loaded inside the disposable cargo freighter is 2,500 kilograms of trash and unneeded equipment. Cygnus is now set to perform a two-week free-flight mission to deploy three CubeSats, according to NASA.
Read MoreAs soon as late 2019, another airlock is expected to be delivered to the International Space Station, but it won’t be used for astronauts or cosmonauts. Instead NanoRack’s Bishop airlock module will be utilized to deploy CubeSats and other external payloads for NASA and governmental or commercial customers.
Read MoreIn early February, NASA accepted a proposal from NanoRacks to send the first commercial airlock to the International Space Station in 2019. This milestone is only the latest of many that has seen the orbiting laboratory gain increased commercial use.
Houston-based NanoRacks has been sending small satellites to be deployed out of the Japanese Kibo airlock for seven years now. The airlock, however, is only big enough to send out things that are about the combined size of a small refrigerator.
Read MoreOrbital Velocity is designed to be "living time capsule" about the International Space Station.
This project is an attempt to bridge an information gap between space agencies and companies, as well as a public that supports space endeavors with their tax dollars. Despite the importance of the space station, the general public doesn't always know what is happening aboard this amazing complex on a regular basis. Research being conducted isn't always readily available and what information is out there can sometimes be difficult to understand. Some people aren't even aware there is an active space program, let alone a space station.
Orbital Velocity hopes to change that by building a database of information through blogs, a website, small videos and longer documentary-like series'.
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