NG-12 delivered around 3,700 kilograms, one of the heaviest Cygnus loads, including a recycling system for the station's water supply and a carbon dioxide removal assembly — the unglamorous life-support hardware whose failure would end a mission far faster than any scientific setback.
It also carried an experiment to bake biscuits in orbit, which received more coverage than the life-support equipment and which was a genuine test of food preparation for long missions, where morale and nutrition both matter.
Among the science was a study of how spaceflight affects the ability of the immune system to respond, and an instrument to observe meteors entering the atmosphere from above.
The spacecraft was named for Alan Bean, the Apollo 12 moonwalker who spent his later life painting lunar landscapes, and who had died in 2018.
It remained berthed for three months. By this point Cygnus was routinely used as additional storage volume as much as a delivery vehicle, the station being chronically short of space.
