Cygnus NG-16

NG-16, previously known as OA-16, was the sixteenth flight of the Northrop Grumman robotic resupply spacecraft Cygnus and its fifteenth flight to the International Space Station (ISS) under the Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-2) contract with NASA. The mission was launched on 10 August 2021 at 22:01:05 UTC, for a (planned) 90-day mission at the ISS. This was the fifth launch of Cygnus under the CRS-2 contract.

Orbital ATK (now Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems) and NASA jointly developed a new space transportation system to provide commercial cargo resupply services to the International Space Station (ISS). Under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, Orbital ATK designed, acquired, built, and assembled these components: Antares, a medium-class launch vehicle; Cygnus, an advanced spacecraft using a Pressurized Cargo Module (PCM) provided by industrial partner Thales Alenia Space and a Service Module based on the Orbital GEOStar satellite bus.

NG-16 was the fifth Cygnus mission under the Commercial Resupply Services-2 contract. Production and integration of Cygnus spacecraft are performed in Dulles, Virginia. The Cygnus service module is mated with the pressurized cargo module at the launch site, and mission operations are conducted from control centers in Dulles, Virginia and Houston, Texas.

This was the eleventh flight of the Enhanced Cygnus. Northrop Grumman named this spacecraft after Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian American astronaut.

The Cygnus spacecraft was loaded with 3,723 kg (8,208 lb) of research, hardware, and crew supplies.

The SEOPS Slingshot Deployment System delivered CubeSats to a 500 km (310 mi) orbit, following un-berthing from the ISS in late 2021.

The 4-Bed Carbon Dioxide Scrubber, a next-generation air filtration unit developed and built by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, was aboard Cygnus NG-16.

NASA Glenn Research Center: