Cygnus Cargo Craft Launches To Space Station Atop SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket

The Falcon 9 first stage as expected, returned to Earth 8 minutes, 20 seconds after liftoff, touching down at Cape Canaveral. It was the 10th launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a SpaceX mission description.

Meanwhile  Falcon 9's upper stage deployed Cygnus in low Earth orbit around 14 minutes and 45 seconds after launch. The cargo spacecraft then began making its way to the space station; and is expected to arrive at the orbiting lab at around 0920 UTC on Thursday (Feb. 1).

Cygnus is packed with more than 3,720 kilograms of supplies and scientific hardware. Among the research gear is a cartilage-growing experiment that could help address joint damage and disease here on Earth and a European Space Agency project that will test the 3D printing of metals in microgravity.

One experiment aboard Cygnus, called the Kentucky Re-entry Probe Experiment-2, will gather data during this death dive, taking "measurements to demonstrate a thermal protection system for spacecraft and their contents during re-entry in Earth's atmosphere, which can be difficult to replicate in ground simulations," NASA officials wrote in their NG-20 mission overview.

Cygnus will spend about six months docked to the ISS, then head back down for a fiery destruction in Earth's atmosphere. It is one of three robotic cargo craft that currently service the ISS, along with SpaceX's Dragon and Russia's Progress vehicle. Whille Progress and Cygnus are expendable spacecraft, Dragon is reusable, surviving the fiery trip through Earth's atmosphere.

Tuesday's launch kicked off the 20th operational cargo mission for Cygnus; but it's the first flight with SpaceX. The previous 19 were lifted off atop Antares or Atlas V rockets.

WATCH SpaceX launch of Northrop Grumman's Cygnus cargo spacecraft to ISS