Takuya Onishi used a robotic arm to safely perform the delicate mission of capturing the Cygnus cargo ship upon its arrival at the International Space Station.
Astronaut Onishi, 40, maneuvered the arm and attached the Cygnus to the Earth-facing port of the ISS Node-One module at around 8:30 p.m. Sunday Japan time.
His fellow Japanese astronaut, Kimiya Yui, 46, performed a similar maneuver during his stint aboard the ISS in August 2015 when he captured Japan’s Kounotori resupply craft.
The Cygnus ship was developed by U.S. aerospace and defense company Orbital ATK Inc. Its approach to the ISS and docking employs the same technology as the Kounotori.
The docking of the Cygnus and Kounotori ships were both assisted by the control room at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Tsukuba Space Center in Ibaraki Prefecture.
The Cygnus was sent into space aboard an improved version of Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket, which resumed flights in December after an October 2014 explosion.
Onishi, who has been aboard the space station since July, is scheduled to wrap up his mission and return to Earth on Oct. 30