The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft successfully docked with the international Space Station (ISS) on Easter Sunday. Aboard the unmanned vehicle were 5,000 pounds of supplies and equipment for the crew aboard the space station.
Koichi Wakata and Rick Mastracchio grappled the Dragon using the Canadarm2 robotic arm at 7:12 a.m. EDT, as the station raced above Egypt. Berthing was complete at 10:06 EDT when the resupply craft docked with the Harmony module aboard the ISS. By that time, astronauts were able to look down and see Brazil beneath their craft.
"Gentlemen, the Easter Dragon is knocking at the door," mission controllers from NASA told the crew after final docking.
Included among the supplies in the crew's orbital Easter basket were legs for a new robotic astronaut, a smartphone-powered satellite and a replacement spacesuit.
Legs for a robotic astronaut were also delivered to the station aboard the Dragon spacecraft. The Robonaut 2 (affectionately nicknamed "R2") will now be able to perform tasks both inside and outside the station. The torso of the android astronaut arrived at the station in February 2011.
"Each leg has seven joints and a device on what would be the foot, called an 'end effector,'" which allows the robot to take advantage of handrails and sockets inside and outside the station," NASA officials wrote on their website.
The PhoneSat 2.5 is a simple satellite, and the device is the fifth in a series. The ISS is equipped with a specially-designed CubeSat launcher. These satellites are designed to test the feasibility of building inexpensive mechanisms that can still deliver usable data. The CubeSat program will also determine how well consumer electronics can survive the rigors of space travel.
If the tests are successful, consumer electronics could make it possible to carry out high-risk, high-reward experiments.
"By advancing the price performance of nanosatellites using consumer electronics, we can make some of the more crazy ideas become economically viable," Jasper Wolfe, PhoneSat manager, said.
Veggie is a greenhouse in space, designed to test methods of growing crops aboard a space station. The first crop grown will be Outredgeous lettuce.
Additional materials arriving aboard the Dragon resupply vehicle include an experiment, studying mating fruit flies. Care packages for each of the six space travelers, created by their families, also arrived aboard the unmanned craft.
Since the retirement of the space shuttle program in 2011, NASA has turned to private industry and other nations to ferry people and materials to the International Space Station.
Space travelers aboard the ISS will be performing a spacewalk on 23 April to repair a backup computer used to docking purposes. When Dragon arrived, the crew managed the rendezvous using the primary electronic system.
