SpaceX’s newest Dragon cargo ship arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) early Sunday (November 27) to deliver tons of new materials, new solar wings and even some ice cream to the orbiting lab.
robot spaceship dragon It docked at the orbiting laboratory on Sunday around 7:39 am EDT (1230 GMT) as both spacecraft flew high over the Pacific Ocean.
“We’re looking forward to unpacking and getting to work,” NASA astronaut Josh Kassada of Mission Control said from the station after the successful docking.
“We hope you enjoy this well-deserved and long-awaited ice cream soon,” said Megan Harvey from Mission Control.
Sunday’s meeting ended the short orbital chase for the Dragon; O SpaceX cargo ship came out above one falcon 9 A rocket on Saturday afternoon (November 26) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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Dragon is packed with approximately 7,700 pounds (3,500 kg) of cargo. The declaration includes two new international space station Deploy Solar Arrays (iROSA), equipment designed to augment existing solar wings in the orbiting laboratory.
The ISS station will eventually host six iROSAs, which together will increase the station’s power supply by 20-30%. So far, astronauts in space have installed two new arrays.
On this flight, Dragon also delivered many scientific experiments to the International Space Station. For example, one study will grow dwarf cherry tomatoes from seed early in the season to help increase food production from the ground. Another study of ancient microgravity will continue Research using 3D heart tissue (Opens in a new tab)testing potential treatments that could prevent or slow the progression of heart disease.
The current Dragon mission is called CRS-26 because it is the 26th payload robot flight SpaceX has made to the International Space Station for NASA. CRS-26 was supposed to take off on Tuesday (November 22), but was I paid due to bad weather.
NASA officials said cargo dragons typically dock at the International Space Station for about a month, but the CRS-26 will stay in the air for 45 days or more. Additional time was allocated in part for the EVA required for the installation of iROSA.
CRS-26 will be in the ocean fog with the help of a parachute. Dragon is the only currently operational cargo ship that returns to Earth unharmed after its missions. Two other operational cargo planes, Northrop Grumman’s Signus and Russia’s Progress, are designed to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere after their time in orbit expires.
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