Northrop Grumman's Cygnus XL spacecraft was scheduled to depart the International Space Station on Friday, Oct. 9, after delivering more than 11,000 pounds of supplies, science experiments and other cargo under the company's Commercial Resupply Services-24 mission, NASA said in an advisory published Oct. 6, 2026 and later updated Oct. 8.

According to the plan, flight controllers on the ground were to command the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm to detach the craft from the Unity module's Earth-facing port and position it for release at 12:45 p.m. NASA astronaut Luke Delaney was to monitor the operation from aboard the orbiting complex.

Loaded with thousands of pounds of disposal items and unneeded cargo, Cygnus XL was scheduled to deorbit Monday, Oct. 12, for a destructive re-entry in which it would safely burn up in Earth's atmosphere. NASA said it would not provide coverage of the deorbit. The spacecraft launched April 11 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.