Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Too late for Christmas, but just in time for any Super Bowl parties that might be in the works, SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship completed delivery of a batch of supplies, experiments and other goods to the International Space Station (ISS) on Tuesday.
According to the Associated Press, the spacecraft arrived at the orbiting laboratory two days after blasting off from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Saturday. Upon the capsule’s arrival, Expedition 42 Commander and NASA astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore used the space station’s robotic arm to capture the capsule and its more than 5,000 pounds of cargo.
The six astronauts currently living on the ISS were starting to get a little low on provisions, the wire service explained, because a vehicle that was to transport supplies to the station in October was destroyed in a launch-pad explosions. The SpaceX launch itself had been delayed by about a month due to rocket issues, delaying the delivery of those goods into the new year.
The AP said that Mission Control joked about the delivery not only missing Christmas, but Eastern Orthodox Christmas on January 7 as well. Wilmore, however, said that he and his fellow astronauts were “excited to have it on board,” adding that he was particularly excited to finally have more mustard, as the facility had completely run out of condiments.
The Dragon capsule was berthed to the space station’s Harmony module at 8:54 am EST, NASA reported on Monday, and it is scheduled to remain attached to the ISS for four weeks. The hatch was scheduled to be opened on Tuesday, but the space agency said that it could be sooner.
In addition to the much-needed supplies, the cargo delivery mission included the Cloud Aerosol Transport System (CATS) instrument, which will be mounted to the outside of the station. CATS will use laser sensors to evaluate clouds and particles in Earth’s atmosphere as it travels, looking for clues pertaining to climate change and helping improve weather forecasting quality.
“Clouds are one of the largest uncertainties in predicting climate change,” said Matt McGill, principal investigator and payload developer for CATS at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. “For scientists to create more accurate models of Earth’s current and future climate, they’ll have to include more accurate representations of clouds.”
In addition, the spacecraft contains several biological experiments designed to take advantage of the facility’s microgravity environment. One of those projects will grow proteins inside a four inch cube to analyze a suspected cause of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological conditions in people. While the research is preliminary, future studies could build upon its findings.
Saturday’s liftoff was significant for another reason: it marked the first time that SpaceX attempted to land its Falcon 9 booster rocket on a floating barge at sea so that it could be reused by the company in future launches. The rocket successfully made it to the spaceport ship, but landed too hard and was damaged during the remote-controlled procedure, company officials said.
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