Cygnus Commercial Cargo Craft Finally Docks at the ISS

Cygnus commercial cargo craft of the Orbital Sciences finally arrived at the International Space Station Saturday at 6.00 a.m. CDT after a week's delay and was welcomed by the crew members of Expedition 37.

The privately owned cargo ship that successfully docked at the ISS delivered about 1,300 pounds of cargo that included food and clothing, student experiments and various other important supplies.  

Cygnus, named after a late NASA astronaut, was captured at 7 a.m. EDT by the Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano with the help of Canadarm2 that is installed in the craft. It was launched on September 18 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia, aboard a 40 meter long Antares rocket.

A Tweet was posted: "Capture!!!! #ISS arm grapples #Cygnus" by the Orbital Science Corp, which built Cygnus as a commercial venture. It is the second company to send a commercial cargo craft to space. Prior to Cygnus, SpaceX's robotic Dragon capsule has successfully docked with ISS three times.

On completing the leak checks and power connections, the hatches to the 7 feet (5 meters) long and 10 feet (3 m) wide Cygnus will be opened on Monday and the crew will unload the material.

The crew members' families were permitted to send personal things like books, DVS, letters or snacks, according to  HNGN.

"We'd like to congratulate you on a great capture today," radioed astronaut Catherine Coleman from mission control in Houston. "Also like to say welcome aboard to the Orbital Sciences G. David Low ... a great human being who bravely explored and had a tremendous vision for the future of spaceflight. We're really proud to have the G. David Low aboard the ISS today. Thanks for all your good work."

The cargo craft landed at the station a week after its proposed date as the team encountered a software glitch. But the engineers quickly identified and resolved the software problem.

 Till the engineers managed to resolve the software patch, Cygnus was kept away from the ISS.

This cargo craft will stay at the ISS for a month.