NASA resumed its plans on Wednesday night to dock an unmanned cargo craft at the International Space Station, after it resolved an issue that caused the engine to shut down early. The problem was attributed to "conservative safety" settings in the software of the vehicle.

U.S. Space Agency said that the arrival of Northrop Grumman's Cygnus XL, which is carrying 11,990 pounds (4,990 kilograms) of cargo and scientific supplies, will take place around 7:18 a.m. ET (1118 GMT) on Thursday.

The spacecraft, a larger version of Northrop's Cygnus freight vessel, was launched from Florida for the first-time on Sunday aboard a SpaceX launch vehicle. It is now on a routine mission that will autonomously deliver supplies to the ISS with its international crew of 7 astronauts.

The spacecraft's engine stopped earlier than expected on Tuesday as it raised its orbit in order to rendezvous with ISS. This forced NASA to cancel a scheduled arrival for Wednesday morning.

NASA released a statement on Wednesday night that said "Cygnus XL’s trajectory placed it a safe distance from the station, while engineers assessed and developed the alternate burn plan."

A conservative software setting in an early warning system triggered a shutdown and stopped the main engine's burn.

After Cygnus has approached the ISS in the early morning hours of Thursday, NASA astronaut Jonny KIM will use Canadarm2, the 57-foot long robotic arm on the station, to grab the spacecraft, and park it near an entry port. It will stay there until March 20,26.

NASA relies on Northrop's Cygnus spacecraft and Elon Musk SpaceX's Dragon capsule to transport supplies and research experiments from and to the ISS. The ISS is a football-field-sized laboratory orbiting Earth since more than 25 year. (Reporting and editing by Jacqueline Wong, Michael Perry, and Joey Roulette)

(source: Reuters)