CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A Northrop Grumman capsule delivered several tons of supplies to the International Space Station Wednesday despite a jammed solar panel.
The mission arrived two days after launching from Virginia. Only one of the cargo ship’s two round solar panels turned on after liftoff. Flight controllers tried in vain to pry open the stuck panel, but managed to draw enough power for flight with just one.
As the capsule slowly approached, the space station crew took pictures so engineers could figure out what went wrong. NASA astronaut Nicole Mann then used the station’s robotic arm to grab the spacecraft, named SS Sally Ride in honor of America’s first woman in space.
A company vice president, Cyrus Dhalla, said later that a piece of debris from the Antares rocket hit one of the solar panel mechanisms during liftoff and prevented its release.
Among the 8,200 pounds (3,700 kilograms) of supplies: props needed for a spacewalk next week to expand the station’s power, as well as apples, blueberries, cheese, peanut butter and ice cream for the station’s seven-member crew in the U.S., Russia and Japan.
Northrop Grumman is one of two companies delivering cargo for NASA. The other is SpaceX, which will launch a mission later this month.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Section is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Science Education Division. AP is solely responsible for all content.
