Nearly two days after launching from Cape Canaveral, SpaceX’s Dragon cargo craft arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday with more than 5,000 pounds of supplies, food, experiments and a new docking mechanism. Astronauts aboard the station captured Dragon using the Canadian-built robotic arm at 9:11 a.m. EDT (1311 GMT).
Fifty years to the day after Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon, a NASA astronaut, an Italian flight engineer and a Russian commander blasted off from Kazakhstan Saturday aboard a Soyuz spacecraft, chased down the International Space Station and glided in for a picture-perfect docking.
A veteran Russian commander, Italian flight engineer and a rookie NASA astronaut lifted off at 1628 GMT (12:28 p.m. EDT) Saturday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, kicking off a six-hour flight to the International Space Station. The crew docked with the station at 2248 GMT (6:48 p.m. EDT).
Investigators believe a leak of propellant inside the Crew Dragon spacecraft’s propulsion system led to the capsule’s explosion April 20 during a ground test at Cape Canaveral, and a senior SpaceX official said Monday that delays are making it “increasingly difficult” to fly astronauts on the commercial spaceship before the end of the year.
A commercial Dragon cargo capsule wrapped up a four-week stay at the International Space Station on Monday with a departure from the complex at 12:01 p.m. EDT (1601 GMT). The spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 5:48 p.m. EDT (2148 GMT) with several tons of research specimens and equipment.
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