At 9:56 AM Eastern Standard Time on Friday, May 25th, SpaceX’s Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station.
Mating the Dragon capsule to the Falcon 9 rocket
In a processing facility at Space Launch Complex-40 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, preparations are under way to mate the SpaceX Dragon capsule to the second stage of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket.
The launch will be the company’s second demonstration test flight for NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program (COTS). During the flight, the capsule will conduct a series of check-out procedures to test and prove its systems, including rendezvous and berthing with the International Space Station.
If the capsule performs as planned, the NanoRacks-CubeLabs Module-9 experiments and other cargo aboard Dragon will be transferred to the station. The cargo includes food, water and provisions for the station’s Expedition crews, such as clothing, batteries and computer equipment.
Under COTS, NASA has partnered with two private companies to provide resupply missions to the station. The launch is scheduled for 9:38 a.m. EDT on May 7.
August 7th
2:28 PM
2:28 PM
Boeing pilots to make space trip
The US company has confirmed it will use the Atlas 5 rocket to test its CST-100 ship on three flights in 2015.
In the wake of the final Shuttle mission, a new kind of space race is brewing. Four companies won NASA contracts this April. Boeing and the United Lauch Alliance will test systems in orbit and practice a capsule abort procedure before launching a manned orbital mission.
Another of several companies vying to provide crew transfer services to the International Space Station, SpaceX, has already put its unmanned Dragon capsule in orbit and returned it to earth - a first for private industry. Currently Boeing’s announcement has them behind SpaceX, which aims to put a crew into space in 2014. Both designs allow a crew of 7, however the Dragon capsule has an integrated abort rocket system that observers believe makes for a techincal advantage. SpaceX also aims to deliver cargo to the ISS late in November.
