A day after launching from Kennedy Area Middle, SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule approached the Worldwide Area Station for an automatic docking Sunday with greater than 7,700 kilos of provides and experiments.
The Dragon provide ship autonomously linked up with the zenith, or space-facing, docking port on the area station’s Concord module at 7:39 a.m. EST (1239 GMT) Sunday to wrap up a 17-hour pursuit of the complicated. The cargo capsule launched at 2:20 p.m. EST (1920 GMT) Saturday on prime of a Falcon 9 rocket.
The mission marks SpaceX’s twenty sixth resupply flight since 2012 to ship cargo to the area station, and is the primary flight of SpaceX’s latest Cargo Dragon capsule, designated Dragon C211. That is the ultimate reusable Cargo Dragon spacecraft SpaceX plans to construct to fulfill NASA’s cargo transportation wants for the station by means of 2030.
The CRS-26 mission is full of {hardware}, provides, and experiments for the area station and the seven-person crew dwelling on-board the complicated. The most important component of the cargo load is NASA’s second pair of latest roll-out photo voltaic arrays to enhance the area station’s energy system.
NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada on-board the area station monitored the Dragon spacecraft’s automated rendezvous, able to ship instructions to the capsule to carry its strategy or abort the docking within the occasion of an issue. The docking occurred because the area station complicated soared greater than 250 miles (400 kilometers) over the Pacific Ocean.
After docking Sunday, astronauts on the area station will open hatches and start unpacking cargo contained in the pressurized compartment of the Dragon spacecraft.
Among the many meals inside: Ice cream, spicy inexperienced beans, cranapple desserts, almond pumpkin pie, and sweet corn for a belated Thanksgiving feast.
Two new ISS Roll-Out Photo voltaic Arrays, or iROSA models, are packed inside Dragon’s unpressurized trunk cargo bay to improve the area station’s energy system. Astronauts on the station will enterprise exterior the complicated subsequent month to assist set up and deploy the brand new roll-out arrays, which is able to increase energy produced by the station’s authentic photo voltaic arrays. The prevailing photo voltaic array wings launched on area shuttle missions between 2000 and 2009.
Constructed by Redwire, the photo voltaic arrays are rolled up on spools like yoga mats throughout launch. The area station’s robotic arm will take away the spools from their mounting posts contained in the Dragon spacecraft’s rear cargo bay and transfer them to attachment factors on the lab’s left-side and right-side solar energy truss.
The roll-out photo voltaic panels will divulge heart’s contents to partially cowl the present arrays. This pair of iROSA models follows the launch of the primary two in 2021. The ultimate two roll-out photo voltaic arrays are scheduled to launch on a SpaceX resupply mission subsequent yr.
Different cargo on the CRS-26 mission contains experiments to check the expansion of dwarf tomatoes on the area station, a transportable hand-held microscope that may assist astronauts accumulate medical imagery of their very own blood samples, and a expertise demonstration to assemble knowledge on the development of versatile buildings in area.
There are additionally eight CubeSats developed by groups in Brazil, United States, Canada, Italy, and Taiwan on-board the Dragon capsule. Astronauts will take away the small satellites from their cargo containers and place them within the Japanese Kibo lab for switch exterior the station by means of an airlock. The CubeSats will likely be launched into orbit utilizing a Nanoracks deployer mechanism.
The Dragon spacecraft will stay docked on the area station for a few month-and-a-half earlier than departing the analysis outpost in mid-January for a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of Florida.
Right here’s a breakdown of the CRS-26 cargo manifest, supplied by NASA:
• Whole Cargo: 7,777 kilos (3,528 kilograms)
- 2,636 kilos (1,196 kilograms) of unpressurized payloads (iROSA)
- 2,341 kilos (1,062 kilograms) of crew provides
- 2,066 kilos (937 kilograms) of science investigations
- 653 kilos (296 kilograms) of car {hardware}
- 55 kilos (25 kilograms) of spacewalk tools
- 26 kilos (12 kilograms) of laptop sources
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