With its re-supply mission to the International Space Station complete, the Cygnus Orbital-2 spacecraft Janice Voss burns up as it re-enters Earth's atmosphere. Fortunately for us German Astronaut Alexander Gerst managed to snap this amazing picture of the resulting fireball.
After a month long re-supply mission, the Janice Voss departed the ISS on August 15 and re-entered on August 17. Launched by an Antares rocket, the spacecraft was used to deliver 1657 KG of cargo (including 300KG of scientific equipment) to the ISS. It also carried 28 Earth imaging nanosatelites, student science experiments and cubesat prototypes. After chasing down the ISS for three days, the Janice Voss was captured using the space stations robot arm. The spaceship is named after Astronaut Janice Voss, who flew 5 space shuttle missions for NASA but died tragically of breast cancer in 2012.
For more images of the docking, release and re-entry, check out the Astro_Alex Flickr page.
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