The unmanned Dragon spacecraft of the US company SpaceX arrived Sunday safely at the International Space Station (ISS), NASA said, the TV was broadcasting live images. This is the first Dragon cargo mission to the orbital outpost since the crash of the Falcon 9 launcher there ten months and the eighth under a contract of $ 1.6 billion with NASA.
the pressurized capsule, which was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Friday night, was seized by the robotic arm of the Station, operated by the British astronaut Timothy Peake, from the European Space agency (ESA), to 11 h 23 GMT above the Pacific west of Hawaii, said a commentator on NASA. Its docking will then take place on the Harmony module of the station.
Six vessels moored simultaneously
With the arrival of Dragon, six spacecraft simultaneously are moored to the ISS, and this, for only the second time in the history of the Space Station. There has already two Soyuz and two Russian Progress and the Cygnus capsule, the US company Orbital ATK arrival at the ISS on March 26 to also deliver supplies and scientific equipment.
Dragon carries more than three tons of supplies, food and water for six crew members of the ISS, as well as equipment and materials for scientific experiments, twenty mice. They will study muscle atrophy and bone loss in microgravity conditions. Dragon also brings in his luggage inflatable capsule Bigelow Aerospace, the BEAM (Bigelow Expandable Activity Module) with a mass of 1.3 tonnes. The BEAM is based on concepts invented by NASA in the 1990s and then developed by the company founded 15 years ago by businessman Robert Bigelow.
New success for SpaceX
in 2013, Robert Bigelow has a contract of $ 17.8 million with NASA to build this inflatable capsule to test these lighter space habitats, and, for the first time to the ISS. The inflatable capsule will also be docked to the station using the robotic arm. Made of Kevlar, an extremely resistant thermoplastic, the capsule will deploy BEAM through internal air tanks to reach four meters in length with a diameter of 3.2 meters, giving it a volume of 16 cubic meters, that of a small room.
the launch of Dragon Friday also marked another major success of SpaceX has succeeded for the first time, after five unsuccessful attempts to land gently on the first stage of the launcher on a barge floating in the Atlantic. This California firm founded by billionaire Elon Musk had already reached in December to ask the first floor high-Falcon 70 meters on land after launch, at the first attempt. This new success could have potentially significant impact on the launch market. If SpaceX was able to reuse several times regularly the first stage of its rocket, it could well significantly reduce its costs of orbiting satellites and spaceships.
Dragon will remain docked to the ISS until ‘May 11, approximately and will be responsible including blood and urine samples collected during 340 days in the ISS by American Scott Kelly and his Russian colleague Mikhail Kornienko, as part of an unprecedented experience for study the physiological and psychological effects of long stays in space in order to prepare a mission to Mars. Dragon is currently the only spacecraft able to return cargo to Earth.
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