SpaceX capsule docks with space station
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule docked with the International Space Station yesterday after manoeuvring itself in another major milestone of its test mission.
The capsule did not have humans aboard. Instead, it carried 180kg of supplies for the space station and a mannequin passenger, outfitted with multiple sensors to measure its ride to space.
This was the first time a SpaceX capsule had attempted to attach itself to the station. During the company’s previous 16 resupply missions, its Dragon cargo capsule hovered below the station until it was grabbed by a robotic arm and attached to a port.
This time, the capsule gradually manoeuvred closer to the station before docking on its own.
Two astronauts aboard the station monitored the Crew Dragon’s progress and sent commands to the capsule until it was about 2m away. At that point, the capsule took over and attached itself to the station in a ‘‘soft Bob Behnken, Nasa astronaut
capture’’. ‘‘Hard capture,’’ meaning the capsule firmly latched onto the station via 12 hooks, occurred about 10 minutes later.
Bob Behnken, one of the two Nasa astronauts who will be on the capsule’s first crewed test mission, said it was ‘‘super exciting’’ to see the Crew Dragon dock.
‘‘Just one more milestone that gets us ready for our flight coming up here,’’ he said on a live stream of the docking.
The Crew Dragon capsule was launched from Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
It was Crew Dragon’s first test flight and the first launch of Nasa’s commercial crew programme – a publicprivate partnership in which the agency awarded SpaceX and Boeing Co. a combined US$6.8 billion in contracts to build separate spacecraft that will take Nasa astronauts to the space station. Crew Dragon will remain at the space station for a few days before undocking and splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday, where a recovery ship will be nearby to pick it up. – LA Times
‘‘Just one more milestone that gets us ready for our flight coming up here.’’