Watch On
A SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule is scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station (ISS) this morning (April 22), and you can watch the orbital rendezvous live.
Elon Musk’s company launched its 32nd robotic resupply mission to the ISS for NASA early Monday morning (April 21), sending a Dragon freighter aloft from Florida’s Space Coast.
If all goes according to plan, the Dragon’s off-Earth chase will end this morning around 8:20 a.m. EDT (1220 GMT), when the capsule docks with the ISS’s Harmony module. You can watch it live here at Space.com courtesy of NASA, or directly via the space agency, beginning at 6:45 a.m. EDT (1045 GMT).
Dragon will deliver about 6,700 pounds (3,040 kilograms) of supplies to the astronauts currently living and working on the orbiting lab.
The cargo haul includes food and other essentials, as well as a variety of scientific experiments. Among the pieces of research gear are “an enhanced air quality monitoring system that could protect crew members on exploration missions to the moon and Mars, and two atomic clocks to examine fundamental physics concepts such as relativity and test worldwide synchronization of precision timepieces,” NASA officials said in a statement.
The Dragon will remain docked to the ISS until sometime next month, when it will return to Earth with a splashdown off the California coast.
The capsule will bring down some trash as well as a load of scientific experiments for researchers to analyze. Dragon is the only currently operational cargo craft with this return-to-Earth capability; the others are designed to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere when their missions conclude.