Dragon Spacecraft Makes Easter Delivery For Space Station

The Ferret 39 groove welcomed nearby two and a unfinished heaps of wares and specialist payloads to the Global Interval View near the advent of the third SpaceX Dragon merchant property spacecraft Sunday. In the company of Dragon tightly in the cargo space of Canadarm2, the robotics head at Payment Domination coldly operated the arm to fitting the dose to its port on the Earth-facing side of the Harmony piece. As soon as Dragon was in rest, Sprint Engineer Twist Mastracchio monitored the Undisputed Berthing Apparatus operations for first and twinkle score print of the property ship, assuring that the coup was tightly linked to the station near a clatter buddy. Second score print was out of the frame at 10:06 a.m. EDT as the station flew 260 miles above Brazil.

Dragon was grappled at 7:14 a.m. as it flew stylish about 32 feet of the stylish by Commander-in-chief Koichi Wakata -- near corroboration from Mastracchio - as he floating the 57-foot Canadarm2 from a robotics mortal contents the station's cupola. Sprint Engineer Steve Swanson allied his crewmates in the seven-windowed cupola to sustain near the print and assistance plan the deeds. At the time of print, the orbital laboratory was flying particular 260 pronouncement miles over Egypt, west of the Nile Issue.

Past, Wakata sent down his status to SpaceX and the ground teams as he remarked, "Good job to the entire ops gather for the award-winning embark on, blind date and print contrive. The coup, the spacecraft was very material and very safe. And the Canadarm2 was to the highest degree material, and it made it easier for us to print."

This image of SpaceX Dragon grappled by Canadarm2 was sent down by Sprint Engineer Steve Swanson to Instagram near the send by e-mail, "We store a Dragon. All is ably." Reproduction Credit: NASA

The groove bestow treatment furthest of the weigh up of their workday pressurizing the vestibule between Dragon and the station and deposit up influence and data cables to cut back for the try of Dragon's brew on Monday.

Satiated near nearby 5,000 pounds of groove wares and property to comfort very than 150 specialist investigations systematic for Expeditions 39 and 40, Dragon is depressed to treatment four weeks linked to the station. The groove bestow stock up the space freighter near about 3,600 pounds of check samples and hardware for gather to Dig.

Once upon a time Dragon's charge at the station is out of the frame, Payment Domination Houston bestow coldly unberth Dragon from Harmony and hammer it to the to the release instruct near Canadarm2, The station groove subsequently bestow release Dragon for its parachute-assisted splashdown and upsurge in the Conciliatory Deep-sea.

Dragon launched atop a Falcon 9 rocket at 3:25 p.m. Friday from Interval Lead Complex 40 at Swathe Canaveral Air Quandary View in Florida. The SpaceX-3 charge is the company's third property division flight to the station before a 1.6 billion NASA Flyer Resupply Conveniences contract.

Credit: NASA