WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- A Northrop Grumman cargo ship departed on Friday the International Space Station (ISS) after docking with the space lab for more than two months.
The Cygnus cargo spacecraft was unberthed from the station at 9:36 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (1436 GMT), heading for a destructive reentry. Cygnus is a non-reusable spacecraft. It will burn up during reentry into the Earth.
Ground controllers remotely unbolted the unpiloted cargo spacecraft from the Earth-facing port of the Unity module and maneuvered it into release position. Then, they sent commands to the Canadarm2 robotic arm to release the craft, according to NASA.
This was a new release position for departure operations, allowing for easier drift away from the station's robotic arm.
At the time of release, the station was flying about 250 miles (400 kilometers) over the South Pacific just off the West Coast of Chile.
The Cygnus will also release multiple CubeSats into orbits before it re-enters the Earth at the end of February.
The space freighter was launched on a U.S. rocket on Nov. 2 last year from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, carrying about 8,200 pounds of supplies and scientific experiments to the station, including tools to repair the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a large science instrument fixed outside station that has been searching for dark matter and antimatter.
The next Cygnus is set to launch to station on Feb. 9.
