The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with 4 astronauts aboard flew for a day before successfully docking with the International Space Station ISS. This is the 3rd time the private company SpaceX has brought humans to the ISS, and the company ended Russia’s monopoly on flights to and from the space station.
Elon Musk tweeted this morning, “Docking confirmed, this dragon is docking at @spacestation for the second time.”
The Endeavour spacecraft began its docking maneuver 424 kilometers above the Indian Ocean at 9:08 GMT, a process that was completed about 10 minutes later when a latching mechanism locked a series of 12 latches between the ISS and the spacecraft, according to footage from NASA’s Nasa telecast.
“Hard capture complete, welcome to Crew 2,” said current ISS commander, U.S. astronaut Shannon Walker.
Endeavour commander, U.S. astronaut Shane Kimbrough, replied, “Thank you, Shannon, we’re glad to be here and we’ll see all of you in a few minutes,”.
The four members of the crew Crew Crew-2 mission are expected to enter the International Space Station at around 11:15 GMT.
Frenchman Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency (ESA), Americans (Shane Kimbrough) Kimbrough and (Megan McArthur) and Japanese Akihiko Hoshide lifted off from Kennedy Space Center at dawn about 23 hours ago Friday.
The performance was another success for private company SpaceX, which won a NASA space transportation mission at a time when Boeing’s Starliner capsule has been delayed in its test flights, AFP said.
With the success of its first manned test flight in May 2020, SpaceX breaks Russia’s monopoly on International Space Station flights, giving the U.S. the ability to accomplish this feat after ending the Space Shuttle program in 2011.
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