SpaceX's private spacecraft has uploaded equipment to the station and will be the first cargo spacecraft to also return to Earth to practice landing a future manned version. This is an opportunity to bring experiments back to Earth.
Yesterday (Friday) history was made when for the first time a commercial company managed to attach a spacecraft to the International Space Station.
After astronaut Don Pettit pulled SpaceX's Dragon capsule using the station's robotic arm, European astronaut Ander Kipers installed it on a "rare" berth in the station's harmonic component at 15:02 GMT (18:02 Israel time). Another astronaut, Joe Akabake, completed the storage of the new spacecraft when he connected Dragon to Harmony an hour later.
"Congratulations on the successful capture" said astronaut Megan Behnken from the control center to the members of the station crew "You've made a lot of people happy down here, both at Hawthorne and here in Houston. Good job guys.
"Today marks another important step for the future of American spaceflight," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "Now that an American company has proven its ability to supply the space station, this opens up a new front of commercial opportunities in space - and an opportunity to create new jobs here in the US by transferring the field of transportation to the space station to the private sector, and thus NASA can free up resources to do really hard work Sending astronauts farther into the solar system than ever before.”
The plan is to wait to be seated when the doors open. The spacecraft carries about 1,150 kg of equipment and supplies, including food and personal items of the crew members, hardware and equipment for scientific experiments, luggage bags required for future flights, and computer equipment.
"The crew members are very excited, so don't be surprised if they don't wait and open the gates sooner," says NASA International Space Station Flight Director Holly Readings at a press conference.
According to the plan, Dragon will remain attached to the space station until May 31st. The robotic arm will release the capsule on this day. Dragon is the only cargo spacecraft that is also planned to return to Earth with experiments and equipment on it, with the aim of testing the landing process when it will be relevant for manned flights. This is compared to the Russian Progress spacecraft, the European ATV spacecraft and the Japanese HTV spacecraft that burn up in the atmosphere. The Russian Soyuz spacecraft are landing but they can carry little equipment back to Earth.
