Cargo Dragon heads for space station

SpaceX aboriginal Sunday launched its 33rd resupply ngo to the International Space Station, sending up a Dragon capsule loaded with 2.5 tons of instrumentality and supplies on with an add-on thruster kit to assistance support the lab's altitude.

Perched atop a workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, commercialized resupply ngo 33 got underway with a sky-lighting motorboat from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station astatine 2:45 a.m. ET, climbing distant connected a northeasterly trajectory lined up with the abstraction station's orbit.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket climbs distant from motorboat analyzable 40 astatine the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station carrying a cargo Dragon capsule loaded with much than 5,000 pounds of unit supplies, probe instrumentality and different cogwheel needed aboard the International Space Station. Spaceflight Now

Nine minutes and 45 seconds later, moments aft the discarded archetypal signifier booster safely landed connected an off-shore droneship, the Dragon was released from the rocket's 2nd stage, kicking disconnected a 29-hour rendezvous with the orbiting laboratory complex.

If each goes well, the cargo vessel volition determination successful for docking astatine the station's guardant larboard astatine 7:30 a.m. Monday. On board: much than 2,400 pounds of unit supplies, astir 1,000 pounds of subject gear, 1,300 pounds of abstraction presumption hardware, machine instrumentality and spacewalk gear.

The nutrient includes the accustomed assortment of fresh, asked-for items for the crew, including coffee, beverage and much than 1,500 tortillas.

"We alert tortillas due to the fact that ... different breads and things similar that person excessively galore crumbs and things of that quality (that interval distant successful weightlessness), truthful you can't really support it successful orbit," said Bill Spetch, ISS operations and integration manager. "Tortillas are a large substitute for that."

On a much important note, Heidi Parris, subordinate programme idiosyncratic for the abstraction station, noted that NASA volition people 25 years of continuous quality beingness aboard the laboratory successful November.

A long-range tracking camera provides a spectacular presumption of the exhaust plume from the rocket's 9 archetypal signifier engines. Spaceflight Now

During that 4th century, she said, "we've hosted much than 280 residents, we've enabled much than 4,000 antithetic ... technological experiments and exertion demonstrations (representing) the enactment of implicit 5,000 researchers from implicit 110 countries astir the world."

The CRS-33 ngo volition bring 50 probe projects to the lab, including a caller survey of the effects of microgravity connected bony loss, a 3D metallic printer to measure the capableness for manufacturing spare parts and tools connected request successful abstraction and an experimentation to survey the effectiveness of 3D "bioprinting."

"This probe ... is looking to make a 3D-printed implantable aesculapian instrumentality that tin enactment nervus regrowth aft wounded by bridging the spread to reconnect severed nerves portion besides simultaneously delivering drugs that tin enactment nervus regeneration," Parris said.

Of peculiar involvement to NASA is the show of an add-on propulsion strategy consisting of 2 SpaceX Draco engines, six propellant tanks and a proviso of helium to pressurize the system. The hardware is mounted successful the Dragon's open-to-space aft trunk section.

The Falcon 9's archetypal signifier successfully landed connected an off-shore droneship aft boosting the precocious signifier and the station-bound cargo Dragon retired of the dense little atmosphere. NASA/SpaceX

"The abstraction station's altitude dilatory decays implicit clip owed to the bladed magnitude of ambiance inactive astatine our altitude," Spetch said. "To counteract that drag, we indispensable occasionally rise the altitude of the ISS."

The Russians grip the bulk of those re-boost operations, delivering the needed propellants and periodically firing thrusters aboard Progress cargo ships and the presumption itself.

"With the summation of the boost trunk connected this mission, Dragon volition besides supply this quality to support the station's altitude," Spetch said. "The boost kit volition assistance prolong the orbiting lab's altitude starting successful September with a bid of burns planned periodically passim the autumn of 2025."

The CRS-33 Dragon volition stay docked to the presumption until December. During that time, the boost kit volition supply the one-and-a-half Progress missions.

Sarah Walker, manager of Dragon ngo absorption astatine SpaceX, said the boost kit volition supply astir a 4th of the propulsion needed successful 1 twelvemonth to support the station's 260-mile-high altitude. The archetypal "burn," expected to past astir 20 minutes, is planned for Sept. 3.

• International Space Station
• Space
• NASA
• SpaceX