Controlling the robotic arm created to grab hold of the pilotless capsule was United Kingdom astronaut Tim Peake who, when capturing the craft, announced: “It looks like we caught a Dragon”.
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A report published by ABC Australia informed, “The cargo also contains Chinese cabbage seeds which astronauts will grow in space, and lab mice that will test whether certain drugs can help prevent muscle and bone loss in microgravity”. Included in the Dragon’s cargo is an expandable room that will be attached to the orbiting outpost.
The cargo ship that lifted off on Friday, a capsule dubbed Dragon, was due to arrive on Sunday at the space station, the $100 billion laboratory flying about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.
Dragon was packed with about 7,000 pounds (3,175 kg) of food, supplies and experiments, including a prototype inflatable habitat.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on a NASA cargo on Friday and today at 07.23am ET the crew aboard ISS captured the rocket’s payload in space.
During its two-year test mission, astronauts will enter the module for a few hours several times a year to retrieve sensor data and assess conditions. Since determining the cause of that launch failure, SpaceX has now launched four successful missions with its Falcon 9 rocket. It is expected to fly home next month with biological samples collected during former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly’s recent yearlong mission and with bulky spacesuit components that engineers want to analyze on the ground.
SpaceX said the achievement was a big step forward in the effort to make rockets recyclable and deliver cheaper, more accessible space travel.
The successful autonomous touchdown of the booster at sea marked another milestone for billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and his privately owned Space Exploration Technologies in the quest to develop a cheap, reusable rocket, expanding his edge in the burgeoning commercial space launch industry.
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Musk said about half of the time, the Falcon 9 rocket will need to return to the ocean, so perfecting the technique of touching down on a floating platform is important. We combined the two short clips into one awesome video of the SpaceX rocket landing here. Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, which landed in West Texas, was not reaching nearly the same speed or altitude as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.
