Since the US Government decided to shut down and stop all web access, it took awhile to get this info. Of course the Cygnus has been at the station for awhile and will be leaving soon, but here is the story on it's arrival anyway.
A week after its original approach date, Orbital Sciences’ commercial cargo
craft Cygnus has arrived at the International Space Station. The Expedition 37
crew captured Cygnus with the Canadarm2 at 7 a.m. EDT Sunday. Cygnus launched
Sept. 18 aboard an Antares rocket from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in
Virginia.
Orbital Sciences uploaded a software fix for a navigation data mismatch that
occurred during its approach Sept. 22. NASA managers opted to wait until after
Wednesday’s Soyuz launch and docking to restart capture and berthing
activities.
Cygnus was operating safely behind the space station by about 1,491 miles
while mission managers and ground controllers tested the software patch and
planned Sunday’s second approach attempt. Cygnus began a series of thruster
burns towards the orbital laboratory Thursday night after station managers gave
their final approval.
As Cygnus met its demonstration objectives and moved closer to the space
station, Expedition 37 Flight Engineers Luca Parmitano and Karen Nyberg watched
and worked in tandem with Mission Control. Parmitano was in the cupola at the
Canadarm2 controls monitoring its approach. Nyberg was his back up at the
secondary robotics workstation inside the Destiny laboratory.
When Cygnus met its final demonstration objective of pointing a tracking
laser at a reflector on the Kibo laboratory it moved to its capture point about
10 meters from the station. Cygnus turned off its thrusters, operated in free
drift, and Parmitano maneuvered the Canadarm2 to grapple and capture Cygnus.
Parmitano operated the Canadarm2 to move Cygnus and attached it to the
Harmony node at 8:44 a.m. The hatches to Cygnus will be opened Monday afternoon
after leak checks and power connections.
Orbital Sciences is the second company to send a commercial cargo craft to
the space station. SpaceX was the first company to send its own cargo ship with
two successful commercial resupply missions and two demonstration missions under
its belt
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