"We captured the Dragon! At 9:11 am ET (13:11 GMT), astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch use the ISS’s robotic arm, Canadarm2, to grab SpaceX’s Dragon cargo vehicle while our orbiting laboratory was travelling more than 267 miles over southern Chile", NASA posted on Twitter.
Dragon's cargo includes food supplies and advanced science materials, such as Techshot’s BioFabrication Facility to print organ-like tissues in microgravity - a stepping stone in a long-term plan to manufacture whole human organs in space using refined biological 3D printing techniques.
Now captured, ground controllers will send commands to begin the robotic installation of @SpaceX's #Dragon cargo craft to the bottom of the @Space_Station’s Harmony module. Live coverage of installation is set to resume at 11am ET at https://t.co/mzKW5uV4hS. Ask ?s using #AskNASA pic.twitter.com/bhFaJPz9Mj
— NASA (@NASA) July 27, 2019
The Dragon unmanned spacecraft was launched on the Falcon 9 carrier rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 6:01 p.m. local time (22:01 GMT). NASA streamed live how the spaceship approached and docked to the ISS.
The mission is SpaceX’s 18th cargo flight to the space station under a Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. Dragon will remain in the orbit for just over a month. As of today, it is the only spacecraft capable shipping cargo both to and from the ISS.
