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SpaceX Dragon Docking With ISS: Cargo Ship Delivers Goods to ISS – Video

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SpaceX Dragon Docking With ISS: Cargo Ship Delivers Goods to ISS
NASA video showing the SpaceX Dragon resupply module docking with the International Space Station #spacex #dragon #iss #internationalspacestation Bringing you the BEST Space and Astronomy...

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SpaceX Dragon Docking With ISS: Cargo Ship Delivers Goods to ISS - Video

SpaceX cargo ship captured by space station crew

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A SpaceX Dragon cargo ship loaded with 2.6 tons of supplies, research gear, spare parts and belated Christmas gifts is maneuvered into position for berthing at the International Space Station early Monday, Jan. 12, 2015, after a two-day rendezvous. NASA TV

Approaching from directly below, a SpaceX cargo ship loaded with more than 5,000 pounds of equipment, supplies and belated Christmas gifts, caught up with the International Space Station early Monday, and then stood by while commander Barry "Butch" Wilmore, operating the lab's robot arm, snared a grapple fixture to complete a two-day rendezvous.

Working from a robotics work station in the multi-window cupola compartment, Wilmore -- assisted by European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti -- guided the arm's latching end effector over the Dragon's grapple fitting and locked it in place at 5:54 a.m. EST (GMT-5), as the two spacecraft sailed 262 miles above the Mediterranean Sea.

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"We're pretty thrilled up here, too," replied Wilmore, a native of Mt. Juliet, Tenn. "Hey, thanks for that, and like you mentioned, you cued it, so 'fly Navy.'"

Originally scheduled for launch in December, the cargo ship's flight was delayed into the New Year by problems with its Falcon 9 booster and temperature constraints related to the space station's orbit. The mission finally got underway Saturday with a picture-perfect pre-dawn launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, followed by a series of rendezvous rocket firings to catch up with the space station.

It was the fifth of 12 planned SpaceX resupply flights under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA, and the first flight of a U.S. resupply ship since an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket exploded seconds after liftoff Oct. 28, destroying a Cygnus cargo ship.

"And we apologize for Santa and his Dragon sleigh to be a little bit more on the Eastern Orthodox schedule and calendar," Bresnik joked, referring to Christmas gifts packed aboard the Dragon. "But definitely a huge congratulation, and thanks to our friends at SpaceX for bringing to ISS such a beautiful vehicle."

"We concur," Wilmore replied. "It's been a couple of days getting here, and we're excited to have it on board. We'll be digging in soon."

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SpaceX cargo ship captured by space station crew

SpaceX Dragon Capsule Delivers Fresh Supplies to Space Station

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The capsule was carried Jan. 10 atop a Falcon 9 rocket that lifted off from Cape Canaveral. After launch, the rocket came down as planned on a drone ship but hit a bit too hard

The rocket stage came down on target but hit the drone ship too hard Saturday. SpaceX will try the bold maneuver again on future launches, company representatives said. Credit: NASA TV

SpaceX's robotic Dragon resupply spacecraft has arrived at the International Space Station after a two-day orbitalchase.

NASA astronaut Barry "Butch" Wilmore, commander of the station's current Expedition 42, grappled Dragon using the orbiting outpost's huge robotic arm at 5:54 a.m. EST (1054 GMT) on Monday (Jan. 12). The capsule was installed on the Earth-facing port of the station's Harmony module three hours later.

The astronauts can now begin offloading the 5,200 pounds (2,360 kilograms) of food, spare parts andscientificexperiments that Dragon brought up on this mission, the fifth of 12 unmanned cargo flights SpaceX plans to fly to the space station under a $1.6 billion deal with NASA. [See photos from SpaceX's fifth Dragon cargo launch]

SpaceX launched the Dragon capsuleearly Saturday (Jan. 10) atop aFalcon 9 rocketthat lifted off from Florida's Cape CanaveralAir Force Station. After the rocket sent Dragon on its way, SpaceX attempted to bring the Falcon 9's first stage back to Earth for a pinpoint landing on an "autonomous spaceport drone ship" in the Atlantic Ocean, as part of the company's effort to develop reusable-rockettechnology.

The rocket stage came down on target buthit the drone ship too hard Saturday. SpaceX will try the bold maneuver again on future launches, company representatives said.

Dragon is unmanned, but the capsule did bring a number of living passengers up to the orbitinglab. For example, it hauled an experiment that will look at how microgravity affects the wound-healing abilities of flatworms, and two others that will study howplantsgrow in space.

The cargo capsule also delivered a NASA instrument called CATS (short for Cloud-Aerosol Transport System), which will be affixed to the station's exterior and then use a laser to measure the distribution of clouds, haze, dust and pollution in Earth's atmosphere.

Dragon will stay attached to the International Space Station for one month, NASA officials said. It will depart on Feb. 10, returning to Earth with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, where SpaceX will retrieve the capsule by boat.

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SpaceX Dragon Capsule Delivers Fresh Supplies to Space Station

How SpaceX Dragon capsule successfully docked at International Space Station

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A commercially operated cargo capsule destined for the International Space Station docked with the station Monday following its flawless launch early Saturday.

The rocket and capsule, built and operated by Space Exploration Technologies Corp., lofted some 2-1/2 tons of food, water, science experiments, and other supplies to the orbiting outpost under a $1.6 billion station-resupply contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The mission comes on the heels of an October launch failure involving a resupply mission conducted by Orbital Sciences Corp., the second of two companies the space agency now relies on to ferry cargoes to the station.

At 5:54 a.m. ET Monday, the capsule was lurking some 32 feet from the orbiting outpost, a final holding point before docking. The station's commander and former US Navy test pilot Barry Wilmore and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti used the station's robotic arm to gently grasp the capsule and pull it into its docking port some 18 minutes ahead of schedule.

During his career as a Navy pilot, Captain Wilmore amassed 663 landings on aircraft carriers. Using a carrier pilot's phrase for a perfect landing, "we'll call that one an OK three-wire; not bad for a Navy guy," quipped astronaut Randolph Bresnik, a former Marine pilot, from the station's mission control center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston when Dragon was firmly in the station's grip.

"We apologize for Santa and his Dragon sleigh for bringinga little bit more on the Eastern Orthodox schedule and calendar," he added a nod to the Christmas gifts that also came up on Dragon.

The mission's primary goal is resupply, but it also served as an opportunity to test a landing system that SpaceX has designed for the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that lofted Dragon. The system is crucial to shifting the first stage from hardware that is used once to hardware that can be recovered and used repeatedly, thus reducing launch costs.

The stage had been redesigned to sport landing legs and four gridded, paddle-like fins to provide the precision steering needed to return the stage upright at a designated landing spot. In this case, the spot was the flat deck of a barge-like craft some 300 feet long and 170 feet wide.

Ten minutes after launch, the first stage reached the vessel, dubbed the autonomous spaceport drone ship. But the stage came down too hard, and the company lost the booster.

"Grid fins worked extremely well from hypersonic velocity to subsonic, but ran out of hydraulic fluid right before landing," tweeted Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder, chief operating officer, and chief technology officer.

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How SpaceX Dragon capsule successfully docked at International Space Station

SpaceX resupply ship reaches space station

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The SpaceX Dragon delivered food, clothing, equipment and science experiments to the International Space Station on Monday. (Reuters)

About 5,000 pounds of much-needed supplies, from groceries to scientific experiments, reached the International Space Station early Monday, after months of delays, including a failed launch in October that exploded shortly after taking off.

SpaceXs Dragon capsule docked at the space station, where it will remain for about a month before returning to Earth, two days after blasting off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. Astronauts aboard the space station were eager for the haul, since they had been getting low on supplies. Apparently, their cupboard had run out of mustard.

Were excited to have it on board, station commander Butch Wilmore said according to reports. Well be digging in soon.

The station was supposed to be resupplied in the fall. But an Orbital Sciences Antares rocket that was to ferry a load exploded in October. SpaceX, Elon Musks start-up space company, was scheduled to run a resupply mission in December, but that was postponed because of technical issues until Saturdays successful launch.

SpaceX was also assessing data from an audacious attempt to land the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket on a floating platform in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. The rocket hit the barge, Musk said, but landed hard and broke into pieces.

While the attempt was unsuccessful, it was a major coup to be able to hit the barge from such a great distance, industry officials said. And Musk said the company would try again. Creating reusable rockets -- which are typically discarded after each launch -- would be a major breakthrough in space flight by helping to make it far more affordable.

The company has flown five of the 12 resupply missions under a $1.6 billion contract with NASA.

Christian Davenport covers federal contracting for The Post's Financial desk. He joined The Post in 2000 and has served as an editor on the Metro desk and as a reporter covering military affairs. He is the author of "As You Were: To War and Back with the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard."

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SpaceX resupply ship reaches space station


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