Space Station

Trailing a brilliant orange flame, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket thundered into orbit Thursday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with a Dragon cargo ship hauling experiments and new solar arrays to enhance the International Space Station’s power generation capability.

A SpaceX Cargo Dragon capsule wrapped up a two-day trip to the International Space Station Saturday with more than 7,300 pounds of hardware and supplies, including two upgraded solar arrays to augment the lab’s power system. The automated supply ship docked with the orbiting outpost at 5:09 a.m. EDT (0909 GMT).

Two new solar array wings for the International Space Station are packed inside the trunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule for launch Thursday from the Kennedy Space Center, the first pair of six upgraded roll-out panels to give the orbiting outpost a power boost.

Peggy Whitson, America’s most experienced astronaut, and veteran GT3-class race car driver John Shoffner, a long-time pilot, will anchor a four-person crew launching to the International Space Station aboard Axiom Space’s second commercial trip to orbit, the company announced Tuesday.

NASA has assigned astronaut Kayla Barron to join three crewmates on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft set to launch to the International Space Station in October, rounding out a four-person team after the space agency was unable to secure an agreement to add a Russian cosmonaut to the mission.