SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft was successfully captured by the International Space Station this morning, making it the first privately-owned vessel in history to dock with the ISS.
At around 14:00 UTC -- 10:00 a.m. ET -- the Dragon was grabbed by the station's Canadian-built robot arm and pulled into the docking birth on the ISS's Harmony node.
In case you missed the live broadcast, NASA has posted video of the historic event.
SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft has passed within 2.4 kilometers of the International Space Station, en route to becoming the first commercial cargo craft to dock with the ISS.
The photo above shows the Dragon as viewed by ISS astronauts, who are preparing for the vessel's historic arrival Friday morning.
More photos are up in NASA's Expedition 31 Flickr gallery.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon space capsule, originally scheduled for launch on Saturday, finally took off early this morning and safely reached orbit.
The Dragon will be the first commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station, where it will deliver supplies to the ISS astronauts.
Also onboard the capsule are the remains of over 300 different people, including James Doohan (Star Trek's original Scotty) and Mercury astronaut Gordon Cooper.
Customers paid a company called Celestis $3,000 to arrange space burials for their loved ones, and this is the second time Celestis and SpaceX have tried to deliver on that promise. The companies made a failed attempt to put remains in orbit back in 2008.
[technabob.]
Saturday morning's historic SpaceX launch, which would have been the first-ever mission to send a commercial spacecraft to the International Space Station, was aborted due to technical problems. Now the reason for the failure to launch has come out: it was a faulty engine valve.
According to SpaceX's official Twitter account, "Inspections found a faulty check valve on engine #5."
The valve was scheduled to be repaired on Saturday night, and a new launch time has been set for early Tuesday morning, at 3:44 a.m.
Sure, it's not as convenient to watch as a Saturday morning launch, but if you still want to see the historic takeoff, you can tune in live on SpaceX's website or at NASA TV.
[geekosystem.]
Tomorrow at 8:55 UTC (4:55 ET), commercial spaceflight company SpaceX will send its Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station, powered by Falcon 9 rockets.
The launch marks the first-ever attempt by a private company to deliver cargo to the ISS, and all the conditions for success are in place. NASA has passed the mission through final launch review, and the agency is reporting a 70% chance of good weather at the Florida launch site tomorrow.
You can watch the historic launch live on NASA TV or the SpaceX website, or check SpaceX founder Elon Musk's Twitter account for updates.
Award-winning video editor Adonis Pulatis put together this breathtaking timelapse of Earth using high-resolution images shot by International Space Station astronauts.
He writes:
The International Space Station Expedition 30 crew has shot some truly awe-inspiring time-lapse sequences flying over practically every square mile of the globe. I downloaded the high-resolution image sets that have been made available and constructed this short time-lapse piece in hi-res 2K project format. I was amazed at how clean the Nikon D3S images turned out (even at ISO 3200 and above) which kept the post-processing requirements to a minimum.
Damn, Earth, you gorgeous!
[geeksaresexy.]
Alex Rivest's timelapse video of the view from the International Space Station pays special attention to the stars the ISS crew can see from their low-earth orbit vantage point.
The timelapse doubles as a great advertisement for NASA's excellent Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth, where footage and images taken from the ISS are made available to the public.
[devour]
