Cygnus XL Cargo Craft Installed on Station’s Unity Module
Sept. 18, 2025: International Space Station Configuration. Six spaceships are docked at the space station including the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft, the SpaceX Crew-11 Dragon spacecraft, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL cargo craft, the Soyuz MS-27 crew ship, and the Progress 92 and 93 resupply ships.
NASA
Northrop Grumman’s new Cygnus XL spacecraft has been installed to the International Space Station. The mission is known as NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 23, or Northrop Grumman CRS-23.
Filled with more than 11,000 pounds of research and supplies, the Northrop Grumman Cygnus XL spacecraft, carried on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, launched at 6:11 p.m. EDT on Sept. 14, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This mission will be the first flight of the Cygnus XL, the larger, more cargo-capable version of the company’s solar-powered spacecraft.
Cygnus will remain at the space station until spring when it departs the orbiting laboratory at which point it will dispose of several thousand pounds of debris through its re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere where it will harmlessly burn up.
Robotic Arm Maneuvering Cygnus for Station Installation
The Cygnus XL cargo craft is maneuvered by the Canadarm2 robotic arm toward the International Space Station’s Unity module for installation.
NASA’s coverage is underway for the installation of Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL spacecraft to the International Space Station on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and more. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
At 7:24 a.m. EDT, NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, with NASA astronaut Zena Cardman acting as backup, captured the Cygnus XL spacecraft using the International Space Station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm.
The spacecraft is carrying more than 11,000 pounds of scientific investigations and cargo to the orbiting laboratory. It launched at 6:11 p.m. EDT on Sept. 14 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Cygnus XL will remain at the space station until March 2026, when it will depart and dispose of several thousand pounds of trash by burning up during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.
Cygnus XL Cargo Craft Captured by Station Robotic Arm
The Cygnus XL cargo craft is pictured moments away from being captured with the Canadarm2 robotic arm.
NASA+
At 7:24 a.m. EDT, NASA astronaut Jonny Kim, with assistance from NASA astronaut Zena Cardman, captured Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL spacecraft using the International Space Station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm.
Mission control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston will use the Canadarm2 to position the spacecraft to its installation orientation. It then will guide Cygnus XL in for installation to the Unity module’s Earth-facing port.
NASA will provide coverage of the spacecraft’s installation at 9 a.m. on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and more. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 23 mission launched at 6:11 p.m. on Sept. 14 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying more than 11,000 pounds of scientific investigations and cargo to the orbiting laboratory.
NASA’s Hubble Sees White Dwarf Eating Piece of Pluto-Like Object
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NASA’s Hubble Sees White Dwarf Eating Piece of Pluto-Like Object
This artist’s concept shows a white dwarf surrounded by a large debris disk. Debris from pieces of a captured, Pluto-like object is falling onto the white dwarf.
Credits: Artwork: NASA, Tim Pyle (NASA/JPL-Caltech)
In our nearby stellar neighborhood, a burned-out star is snacking on a fragment of a Pluto-like object. With its unique ultraviolet capability, only NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope could identify that this meal is taking place.
The stellar remnant is a white dwarf about half the mass of our Sun, but that is densely packed into a body about the size of Earth. Scientists think the dwarf’s immense gravity pulled in and tore apart an icy Pluto analog from the system’s own version of the Kuiper Belt, an icy ring of debris that encircles our solar system. The findings were reported on September 18 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The researchers were able to determine this carnage by analyzing the chemical composition of the doomed object as its pieces fell onto the white dwarf. In particular, they detected “volatiles” — substances with low boiling points — including carbon, sulphur, nitrogen, and a high oxygen content that suggests the strong presence of water.
“We were surprised,” said Snehalata Sahu of the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. Sahu led the data analysis of a Hubble survey of white dwarfs. “We did not expect to find water or other icy content. This is because the comets and Kuiper Belt-like objects are thrown out of their planetary systems early, as their stars evolve into white dwarfs. But here, we are detecting this very volatile-rich material. This is surprising for astronomers studying white dwarfs as well as exoplanets, planets outside our solar system.”
This artist’s concept shows a white dwarf surrounded by a large debris disk. Debris from pieces of a captured, Pluto-like object is falling onto the white dwarf.
Artwork: NASA, Tim Pyle (NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Only with Hubble
Using Hubble’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, the team found that the fragments were composed of 64 percent water ice. The fact that they detected so much ice meant that the pieces were part of a very massive object that formed far out in the star system’s icy Kuiper Belt analog. Using Hubble data, scientists calculated that the object was bigger than typical comets and may be a fragment of an exo-Pluto.
They also detected a large fraction of nitrogen – the highest ever detected in white dwarf debris systems. “We know that Pluto’s surface is covered with nitrogen ices,” said Sahu. “We think that the white dwarf accreted fragments of the crust and mantle of a dwarf planet.”
Accretion of these volatile-rich objects by white dwarfs is very difficult to detect in visible light. These volatile elements can only be detected with Hubble’s unique ultraviolet light sensitivity. In optical light, the white dwarf would appear ordinary.
About 260 light-years away, the white dwarf is a relatively close cosmic neighbor. In the past, when it was a Sun-like star, it would have been expected to host planets and an analog to our Kuiper Belt.
Like seeing our Sun in future
Billions of years from now, when our Sun burns out and collapses to a white dwarf, Kuiper Belt objects will be pulled in by the stellar remnant’s immense gravity. “These planetesimals will then be disrupted and accreted,” said Sahu. “If an alien observer looks into our solar system in the far future, they might see the same kind of remains we see today around this white dwarf.”
The team hopes to use NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to detect molecular features of volatiles such as water vapor and carbonates by observing this white dwarf in infrared light. By further studying white dwarfs, scientists can better understand the frequency and composition of these volatile-rich accretion events.
Sahu is also following the recent discovery of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. She is eager to learn its chemical composition, especially its fraction of water. “These types of studies will help us learn more about planet formation. They can also help us understand how water is delivered to rocky planets,” said Sahu.
Boris Gänsicke, of the University of Warwick and a visitor at Spain’s Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, was the principal investigator of the Hubble program that led to this discovery. “We observed over 500 white dwarfs with Hubble. We’ve already learned so much about the building blocks and fragments of planets, but I’ve been absolutely thrilled that we now identified a system that resembles the objects in the frigid outer edges of our solar system,” said Gänsicke. “Measuring the composition of an exo-Pluto is an important contribution toward our understanding of the formation and evolution of these bodies.”
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for more than three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
This artist’s concept shows a white dwarf surrounded by a large debris disk. Debris from pieces of a captured, Pluto-like object is falling onto the white dwarf.
Cygnus Resupply Ship Approaching Station for Capture
Northrop Grumman’s 21st Cygnus cargo craft approaches the International Space Station for a capture with the Canadarm2 robotic arm on Aug. 6, 2024.
NASA
NASA’s coverage is underway on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and more for the capture of Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL spacecraft. At approximately 7:18 a.m. EDT, NASA astronaut Jonny Kim will capture the spacecraft using the International Space Station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm, and NASA astronaut Zena Cardman will assist. After capture, the spacecraft will be installed on the Unity module’s Earth-facing port for cargo unloading.
On Sept. 16, the Cygnus XL spacecraft’s main engine shut down earlier than planned during two orbit-raising burns for its space station rendezvous. NASA and Northrop Grumman delayed its arrival while flight controllers assessed an alternate approach plan. The early shutdown was triggered by a conservative software safeguard. The spacecraft has been cleared for its approach to the orbiting laboratory.
The spacecraft launched at 6:11 p.m. on Sept. 14 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying more than 11,000 pounds of scientific investigations and cargo to the orbiting laboratory for NASA. The mission is known as NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 23, or Northrop Grumman CRS-23.
Live coverage of Cygnus XL installation will begin at 8:25 a.m. on NASA+, Amazon Prime, and more. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media.
