Orbital ATK Cygnus reached its destination on Sunday and delivered the cargo weighing 2,300 kilograms.

The spacecraft was carrying supplies for the six-person crew of the International Space Station (ISS). It was also carrying science experiments. The spacecraft was grabbed by a robotic arm at 11:28 GMT.

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The spacecraft is not capable of independent docking and therefore needed the assistance of robotic arm. The arm, 57.7 foot long, Canadarm 2 was operated by Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi. He was backed up by American astronaut Kate Rubins. The arm will later be remotely controlled by flight controllers at NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston to attach the spacecraft to Unity Module.

The spacecraft will stay there for about a month before making a destructive re-entry into earth's atmosphere. The cargo ship was launched using an Antares rocket on October 17 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport Pad 0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

Frank Culbertson, president of Orbital ATK's Space System Group, said that while all the missions are important, OA-5 mission holds a special place as it marks the return to home base of operations. He also said that Cygnus is likely to be used again as a platform for conducting various scientific experiments for specific customers.

Cygnus is expected to carry out two secondary missions before its disintegration. The spaceship is non-reusable, making it suitable for conducting experiments related to Saffire-II for investigating the nature of flame propagation in a microgravity environment. These experiments may provide insight into the possibility of a fire spreading in a spacecraft.