There were some tense moments over the last few days as Northrop Grumman’s NG-18 Cygnus space freighter journeyed to the International Space Station after a big glitch. Only one of the spacecraft’s two solar arrays unfurled, but NASA announced the cargo craft had pulled off a successful docking maneuver on Wednesday morning.

Cygnus is loaded with 4 tons of hardware, crew supplies and research equipment. It launched from Virginia on Monday morning. The ISS crew captured the spacecraft using a robotic arm and installed Cygnus on an available port.

NASA tweeted a video of the capture that clearly shows only one of the round solar arrays open.

NASA announced the solar array glitch in a short statement on Monday, saying Northrop Grumman was gathering data on the second array deployment and working closely with the space agency to investigate what happened. Northrop Grumman said the spacecraft had sufficient power to rendezvous with the ISS as scheduled. That assessment ended up being accurate.

The uncrewed cargo craft uses fold-out solar arrays that tuck away during launch and later open up like circular fans. A Northrop Grumman video from 2015 shows what the process looks like.

This particular Cygnus spacecraft is named the SS Sally Ride in honor of the first American woman in space. It’s carrying some imagination experiments related to 3D-printing human tissue and growing plants in microgravity.

A Cygnus cargo spacecraft doesn’t return to Earth. The crew typically packs it up with trash before it undocks, reenters Earth’s atmosphere

Google’s new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro promise to be impressive phones that could rival Apple’s iPhone 14 and Samsung’s Galaxy S22, all while undercutting Apple and Samsung on price. Even with noteworthy software and camera features, Google made a particular point to emphasize this during Thursday’s Pixel event. The Pixel 7 starts at $599 (£599, AU$999) while the 7 Pro starts at $899 (£849, AU$1,299).

By contrast, the Samsung charges $799 for the S22 (or $1,200 for the S22 Ultra). Apple, henceforth, prices the iPhone 14 at $799 and the 14 Pro Max at $1,099. Unfortunately for Google, this price difference may not actually matter to the US audience where consumers still largely buy devices from wireless carriers.

When going this route, the price difference melts away as all three of the major providers offer a variety of trade-in and upgrade deals on iPhones, Galaxies, Pixels and other devices to both new and existing users. At Verizon, for example, depending on your plan and trade-in device (and your willingness to stay with the carrier for 36 months) you could get an iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone 14, Galaxy S22 or Galaxy S22 Plus for free. Devices like the iPhone 14 Pro Max, Galaxy S22 Ultra or Z Fold 4 could be had for up to $1,000 off. AT&T and T-Mobile regularly offer similar deals.

For the carriers, subsidizing the price of a device is a good way to lock users into 24- to 36-month financing plans