A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft loaded with cargo, experiments and NASA equipment was launched into space on Friday, April 18 on a Falcon 9 rocket, also manufactured by the same company.
The astronauts are already impatiently awaiting the arrival of the spacecraft, and they will unload the equipment from it immediately, in order to free up time and resources for an urgent spacewalk for the purpose of repairing a backup computer that crashed about two weeks ago, and because of which NASA had to shut down non-essential systems and stop experiments.
Dragon's payload, which weighs close to 2.5 tons, includes a spacewalk spacecraft for astronauts as well as equipment and supplies for over 150 scientific studies to be carried out by the station's crew. As we reported extensively last week, one of these experiments is a facility known as VEGGIE designed to grow food plants in a limited volume for the consumption of the staff.
SpaceX will provide essential experiments and cargo to the space station," said William Gerstenmeyer, NASA's assistant administrator for manned flights. "The variety and quantity of the new experiments is enormous. These studies will help us improve our understanding of man's adaptation to living conditions in space for long periods and will help us develop technologies that will enable deep space exploration."
This is SpaceX's third cargo spacecraft under a $1.4 billion contract with NASA. The spacecraft separated from the Falcon 9 rocket as planned and deployed its two solar arrays on time.
Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX said: "Everything seems to be fine with Dragon. I am excited. The day is happy for me."
The launch was followed by launch No. 40 at Cape Canaveral belonging to the US Air Force. The Universe Today website reported last week Because SpaceX signed an agreement with NASA to lease the 39A launch complex, from which many historical missions were launched, for commercial launch purposes.
