SpaceX Cargo Dragon Launched With Christmas Gifts for ISS

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched another SpaceX cargo ship into orbit on Sunday. It's the first of a new series of roomier, more capable Dragon capsules using several of the more sophisticated technologies used by the company's Crew Dragon astronaut ferry ships.

The latest Cargo Dragon was equipped with more than 6,500 pounds of crew provisions, replacement parts, research instruments, and other equipment, including a commercial airlock for on-board tests, to allow the company's 21st delivery run to the International Space Station, the fifth under a NASA deal.

The Dragon 2 is built to travel itself to docking at the same ports used by the piloted Crew Dragon spacecraft, unlike the initial Dragon cargo ship, which had to be grabbed by the space station's robot arm used for docking. However, unlike the crewed variant, the container ship is not fitted with seating or an emergency mission abortion system.

1.7 Million Pounds of Thrust

The long-awaited task started at 11:17 a.m. EST despite launching a day late owing to poor weather as the nine first-stage Merlin 1D engines of the Falcon 9 roared to life with a flood or fire, driving the 229-foot-tall rocket at the Kennedy Space Center away from pad 39A.

The rocket steadily arced out to the northeast, accelerating at 1.7 million pounds of thrust, climbing straight into the plane of the orbit of the space station, a prerequisite for spacecraft attempting to meet up and connect with a target going at almost 5 miles per second.

The first stage, making its fourth flight, dropped away two and a half minutes after liftoff, now far out of the dense lower atmosphere, and flew to a SpaceX downrange drone ship landing. It was the 68th active booster recovery of SpaceX and his 47th at sea.

Meanwhile, the second stage of the Falcon 9 began the climb to space, releasing the Dragon 2 capsule 12 minutes after launch into the scheduled provisional orbit.

The space station is fitted with eight docking ports, four used for Russian spacecraft and four usable for U.S. cargo and crew ships on the laboratory's front end. Visiting container ships that use the station's robot arm to drag them in for berthing are used by two of the U.S. ports.

However, the other two U.S. ports are fitted with locking mechanisms that can handle SpaceX crew and freight Dragons' automatic contacts and Boeing's CST-100 Starlink crew ferry boats. The Crew Dragon spacecraft that last month brought four astronauts to the station is docked at Harmony's forward-most port, while the Dragon 2 cargo ship will dock first at the upper space-facing port of the platform.

Christmas Gifts

The Dragon 2 cargo ship's pressurized cabin was fitted with 803 pounds of crew supplies for its maiden flight; 2,100 pounds of scientific gear; 265 pounds of spacewalk devices; 698 pounds of spacecraft hardware; 102 pounds of computing equipment; and 53 pounds of Russian hardware.

A 2,400-pound airlock built by Nanoracks, a business that enables flights via private enterprise, university, and government-sponsored experiments, was stored in the capsule's unpressurized trunk portion.

The airlock would be connected to the far-left port of the Tranquility module and regularly separated. These would reveal the tests inside and mounted to the vacuum of space on its outside.

The International Space Station already has a Japanese experiment airlock. However, project manager Brock Howe said the Nanoracks unit, known as the Bishop Airlock, is about five times larger.

"There are a lot of different environments that the scientists can use, a lot of different volumes, a lot of different payload power and data capabilities on board the airlock that really will enhance their ability to do some really cool science," he said.

Other equipment on board the Dragon 2 comprises parts for the lab's newly shipped next-generation female-friendly bathroom, equipment for the station's water recycling device, a cabin depressurization nitrogen tank, and a test specimen rodent habitat.

Two studies are being performed to research how microgravity impacts the heart and brain tissue. BioAsteroid will explore the function that microbes might play in potential space mining activities.

"BioAsteroid is an experiment to study whether we can use microorganisms, bacteria or fungi, to extract economically interesting elements from asteroid material," said principal investigator Charles Cockell, professor of astrobiology at University of Edinburgh.

"It's essentially what we would call a bio-mining experiment, and we hope to learn whether we can use microbes to extract things like rare earth elements and other elements that can be used to sustain a self-sustaining human presence throughout the solar system."

Check out more news and information on SpaceX on Science Times.