Bye bye Cygnus

ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst and NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor commanded the International Space Station’s 16-m robotic arm to release a #Cygnus supply spacecraft to burn up harmlessly over Earth. The duo set up the robotic workstation in the European-built Cupola module to follow operations from the observatory. You can see Alexander opening the protective shutters from a window at the start of the video. The spacecraft was released at 14:17 GMT on 15 July 2018 as the International Space Station flew over Colombia. Cygnus spent two weeks orbiting Earth on its own allowing engineers to conduct tests as well as releasing a series of miniature satellites before ending its mission. Watch the release of Dragon here: ★ Subscribe: Follow Alexander and the Horizons mission on social media via and on Check out our full video catalog: Follow ESA on Twitter: On Facebook: On Instagram: On Flickr: ESA is Europe’s gateway to space. Our mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world. Check out to get up to speed on everything space related. Copyright information about our videos is available here: