13 Apr 2026

At 1:20 p.m. EDT, NASA astronaut Chris Williams, with assistance from NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway, captured Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL spacecraft using the International Space Station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm.

NASA’s Mission Control Center at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston will use Canadarm2 to position the spacecraft for installation, then guide Cygnus XL to the Unity module’s Earth-facing port. NASA will not provide live coverage of the spacecraft’s installation.

NASA’s Northrop Grumman Commercial Resupply Services 24 mission launched at 7:41 a.m. on April 11 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying more than 11,000 pounds of scientific investigations and cargo to the orbiting laboratory.

Northrop Grumman named the spacecraft the S.S. Steven R. Nagel in honor of the former NASA astronaut who flew four space shuttle missions, logging more than 720 hours in space.

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The Cygnus XL cargo spacecraft arrives at its capture point 12 meters away from the International Space Station before the Canadarm2 robotic arm, operated by NASA astronaut Chris Williams, reaches out and grapples the resupply ship.