Crew Berths SpaceX Dragon at ISS

SpaceX - Dragon CRS-3 Mission patch.

April 20, 2014

Dragon berthed at ISS. Image Credit: NASA TV

ISS Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, with the assistance of NASA’s Rick Mastracchio, successfully berthed the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft at the space station at 9:06 a.m. EDT. The mission is the company's third cargo delivery flight to the station. Dragon's cargo will support more than 150 experiments to be conducted by the crews of ISS Expeditions 39 and 40.

The scientific payloads on Dragon include investigations that focus on efficient ways to grow plants in space, demonstrating laser optics to communicate with Earth, human immune system function in microgravity and Earth observation. Also being delivered is a set of high-tech legs for Robonaut 2, which can provide the humanoid robot torso already aboard the orbiting laboratory with the mobility it needs to help with regular and repetitive tasks inside the space station.

Video above: SpaceX Dragon Ship Arrives at the International Space Station with Important cargo. Video Credit: NASA TV.

Dragon also will deliver the second set of investigations sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), which manages the portion of the space station designated a U.S. National Laboratory. CASIS investigations on Dragon are part of the organization's initial suite of supported payloads linked to Advancing Research Knowledge 1, or ARK 1. The investigations include research on protein crystal growth, which may lead to drug development through protein mapping, and plant biology.

Read about science aboard SpaceX-3: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/spacex_third_mission/

Skvortsov also teamed up with Flight Engineer Oleg Artemyev to unload items from the ISS Progress 53 cargo craft docked at the aft port of Zvezda.  Progress 53 is set to undock from the station on Wednesday, April 23, at 4:54 a.m. to test its Kurs automated rendezvous equipment. The vehicle will redock with Zvezda on April 25 at 8:16 a.m. Progress 53 delivered 2.9 tons of food, fuel and supplies to the station on Nov. 29 following a four-day journey that included a “flyby” of the station to test a new lighter, revamped Kurs system .

And after 11 days of free flight for engineering tests, the Russian ISS Progress 54 cargo ship, now loaded with trash from the station, was commanded to deorbit for its fiery entry into the Earth’s atmosphere for disposal.  The deorbit burn at 10:52 a.m. sent the cargo craft on a course for atmospheric entry over the Pacific Ocean at 11:32 a.m.

For more information about the International Space Station (ISS), visit: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Image, Video, Text, Credits: NASA / NASA TV.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch