SpaceX supply ship unloaded by robots and astronauts

The International Space Station's Dextre robot plucked a high-tech laser communications terminal from the trunk of a Dragon commercial cargo craft Monday, completing two weeks of unpacking the SpaceX supply ship's 4,600 pounds of experiments and provisions.

The Dextre robot is pictured near the Dragon spacecraft. Photo credit: NASA The cargo freighter's supply load included materials stowed inside its pressurized cabin and mounted in a rear trunk, an external logistics platform designed to carry large experimental packages and spare parts for operations outside the space station.

The Dragon spacecraft arrived at the space station April 20, two days after launching on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The unmanned cargo ship is the third operational vehicle SpaceX has sent to the space station under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA.

The space station's astronauts were charged with removing the gear packed inside the Dragon's internal cargo hold. The job of unloading the capsule's trunk fell to the outpost's Canadian-built robotics system.

The crew last week finished transferring cargo from the Dragon spacecraft's pressurized section, totaling 1,576 pounds of science and research equipment supporting more than 150 experiments, 1,049 pounds of crew supplies, 449 pounds of vehicle hardware, and 271 pounds of spacewalk tools, including a fresh spacesuit.

Among the items were legs for the space station's Robonaut 2 humanoid robot, a research investigation aimed at demonstrating vegetable growth in a habitat aboard the complex, and an experiment funded by the National Institutes of Health seeking to identify the cause of a suppressed immune system during long-duration space missions. Scientists say the research could help treat auto-immune diseases like arthritis and diabetes.

The Dragon's cargo delivery also replenished dwindling food stockpiles on the space station.

For the first time, SpaceX hauled technological experiments inside the Dragon spacecraft's external trunk: the High-Definition Earth Viewing payload and the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science, or HDEV and OPALS.

The space station's Dextre robot -- a 12-foot-tall, two-armed device with a toolkit for myriad repair and maintenance tasks -- moved the HDEV camera suite to a mounting plate on the European Columbus lab module May 1.

The camera system was activated and started transmitting high-quality views outside the space station May 2. You can watch live video from the HDEV camera system here.