New Delhi: At 14:52 hours UTC (20:22 hours ITC) on 5 November 2024, the 31st commercial resupply mission from SpaceX successfully and autonomously docked with the forward port of the Harmony module on the International Space Station (ISS). The Cargo shuttle was launched on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on 4 November from the Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. The SpaceX Cargo Dragon is carrying about 2,700 kg of scientific experiments, supplies, and tools for the orbital research platform. This was the fifth flight of the Dragon Spacecraft, that will remain attached to the International Space Station for a month before departing and returning to the Earth with a splashdown off the coast of Florida.
The SpaceX Cargo Dragon approaching the International Space Station for docking. (Image Credit: NASA).
The autonomous docking was monitored by NASA flight engineers Nick Hague and Barry Wilmore. The two astronauts will be joined by the commander of the ISS, Sunita Williams and flight engineer Don Pettit to begin unloading the research samples and hardware. The astronauts on board the ISS had a light day before the docking of the Cargo Dragon. Hague, Williams, Wilmore and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov undocked the SpaceX Crew 9 Dragon from the forward port of the Harmony module to the adjacent space-facing port to open up the slot for the Cargo Dragon.
Science experiments on board Cargo Dragon
On board the SpaceX dragon are 20 kilograms of computer resources, 238 kilograms of vehicle hardware, 171 kilograms of equipment for spacewalks, 917 kilograms of science experiments, and 961 kilograms of crew supplies. The COronal Diagnostic EXperiment (CODEX) instrument will examine coronal wind using a coronagraph, a device that blocks out the face of the Sun to reveal the fine details of its atmosphere. There is also a radiation toleration experiment on board to investigate how an Antarctic moss responds to the combination of cosmic radiation and microgravity on the orbital platform. The European Space Agency has also sent up an experiment to investigate how materials age in a space environment. There is also an innovative experiment by Nanolab Astrobeat to use cold welding to repair spacecraft from the inside-out.
