Q&A with Guglielmo Aglietti, RemoveDebris principal investigator (members only)

A commercial Dragon spacecraft glacially approached the International Space Station on Wednesday, allowing a robotic arm controlled by Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai to reach out and grapple the supply ship as it soared 250 miles over Africa, completing SpaceX’s 14th mission to the research complex, and the second by the same capsule.

For the final time, a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule approached the International Space Station Monday for capture with the research lab’s robotic arm, delivering more than 4,300 pounds of food, experiments and spare parts. Future Dragon resupply missions will use a new spaceship design to automatically dock with the space station.

Mimi Aung leads a cadre of engineers developing the Mars Helicopter, an aerial drone set to fly to the Red Planet with the Mars 2020 rover.