In this photo provided by NASA, the SpaceX Crew Dragon is pictured just beside the International Space Station. SpaceX's new crew capsule arrived at the station on Sunday in a remarkable moment for commercial space exploration.



Humans have entered SpaceX’s Crew Dragon while in orbit for the first time, just hours after the commercial spacecraft docked at the International Space Station on Sunday morning.

The new space vehicle, carrying only cargo and a human dummy, launched Saturday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On Sunday, the ISS crew watched as Crew Dragon became the first American commercial space vehicle designed to carry humans to dock at the station, according to NASA.

Astronauts David Saint-Jacques and Oleg Artemyev swung open the hatch and entered the capsule at 7:07 a.m. in Houston, where NASA employees watched. The successful maneuver was also greeted with cheers from the Hawthorne, Calif., headquarters of Elon Musk’s ambitious space company.

“Congratulations to all nations, private space firms and individuals who wake up every day driven by the magic of exploration,” American astronaut Anne McClain, the third crew member on the station, said at a welcoming ceremony broadcast over NASA TV. “This day belongs to all of us.”

The entire procedure was light on showmanship compared to SpaceX’s last major flight test, when the company launched a red Tesla into space on its Falcon Heavy rocket. But Sunday’s event was a major step forward for the company, which has so far only ferried cargo into and out of orbit.

“This is a good day,” said Saint-Jacques, an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency. “The first day of a new era for the next generation of space explorers.”

During Sunday’s mission, the ISS crew methodically checked off tasks, starting with atmospheric tests. After allowing the air in the craft to mix with the air in the station, the astronauts returned without oxygen masks to properly welcome Crew Dragon — by installing window covers and checking valves.

The crew also took selfies and videos, including a few shots with Crew Dragon’s second passenger, a small, stuffed Earth with limbs and a perplexed facial expression that bounced about the capsule in microgravity.

The successful demonstration brings the U.S. one step closer to once again sending people into orbit without relying on Russian space vehicles, which have ferried American astronauts to the International Space Station since NASA retired its shuttles in 2011.

Now, sensors on the dummy passenger will be able to offer a more complete picture of how a real human body will fare the trip in the new vehicle. That’ll become crucial when NASA eventually sends astronauts up in Crew Dragon, which could happen as early as this summer, if all tests go as planned.

Those handpicked space travelers, astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, watched the Crew Dragon launch from Florida, then traveled to Hawthorne to see operations unfold along with the SpaceX team, according to NASA. The celebration was a milestone for Musk, who launched the company in 2002 with the goal of taking humans into space and one day colonizing Mars.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine marked Saturday’s launch with a tweet, writing that the moment marked “a new chapter in American excellence.”

More than 200 miles above the Earth, McClain and her crew mates offered a slightly different message. McClain called back to the early milestones in space exploration, including the first human to reach outer space – Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin – and the 1969 moon landing by American spaceflight Apollo 11.

“These events remind us … that we can be united by a cause that is not based on fear, threat or common enemy, but rather on a bold endeavor,” she said. “An insatiable curiosity to go beyond what is known and to do what has never been done.”

The Crew Dragon is scheduled to remain docked for five days before returning to Earth on March 8. </s> SpaceX has become the first company to design, build, launch, and now dock a commercial spaceship made for flying people to the International Space Station.

Elon Musk's rocket company launched the seven-seat vehicle, called Crew Dragon, on Saturday at 2:49 a.m. ET. By early morning on Sunday, the 14,000-lb space capsule had caught up to the football-field-size laboratory that orbits Earth.

After a series of safety checks, SpaceX began nudging Crew Dragon toward the front end of the space station. At 5:51 a.m. ET, it made soft contact with a docking node, engaged six arms, and latched on. About 11 minutes later, the spaceship tightly screwed itself to Node 2 of the space station.

Nobody was on board to open Crew Dragon's hatch — only 400 lbs of cargo and a female crash-test dummy named "Ripley". However, NASA says SpaceX's demonstration or Demo-1 mission was "a critical first step" in restoring US-crewed access to space, since the goal is to prove the new spaceship is safe to fly its astronauts.

"A new generation of space flight starts now with the arrival of @SpaceX's Crew Dragon to the @Space_Station," Jim Bridenstine, NASA's administrator, tweeted on Sunday. "Congratulations to all for this historic achievement getting us closer to flying American Astronauts on American rockets."

Read more: NASA picked these 9 astronauts to fly SpaceX and Boeing's spaceships for the first time

The astronauts of Expedition 58 at the International Space Station speak during a welcome ceremony for SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule, the first commercial spaceship to enter orbit, on March 3, 2019. NASA TV

NASA's space shuttle Endeavour was the last American human-rated ship to touch the space station, and that was in July 2011.

On Sunday, Crew Dragon docked with Node 2: the spot where NASA's 100-ton space shuttle orbiters often used to dock.

The symbolism was not lost on the space station's current three-person Expedition 58 crew, who opened the hatch, floated inside Crew Dragon at 8:07 a.m. ET, and held a greeting ceremony for Crew Dragon live on NASA TV.

"It was a beautiful thing to see," said David Saint-Jacques, a Canadian astronaut and station crew member. "Today we welcome a brand-new spacecraft to the space station, and a great new addition to the quiver of tools we have for humans to further space exploration. This is a good day, a first day of a new era for the next generation of space explorers."

'Welcome to the new era in spaceflight'

Astronaut Anne McClain plays with a plush Earth toy inside SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule. The vehicle docked to the International Space Station on March 3, 2019, marking the first arrival of a human-rated commercial spaceship at the football-field-size laboratory. NASA TV

During the brief greeting ceremony, Expedition 58 commander and Russian crew member Oleg Kononenko spoke first.

"On behalf of my crew, I would like to congratulate the United States of America and the NASA team for this very significant event: the launch and docking of the SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship," Kononenko said. "It's a historic step … on our way of human beings [moving] beyond low-Earth orbit to the moon, and Mars, and the future."

Saint-Jacques spoke next, marveling at the thousands of people, years of work, and close collaboration between SpaceX and NASA that it took to pull off a docking of a commercial spaceship.

Last was Anne McClain, a NASA astronaut and another space station crew member. She had the most to say about Crew Dragon's successful arrival at her orbiting home in the sky.

"Our sincere congrats to all earthlings who have enabled the opening of this next chapter in space exploration," McClain said. "And congratulations to all nations, private space firms, and individuals who wake up every day driven by the magic of exploration. This day belongs to all of us."

Read more: Humanity's coolest achievements in spaceflight since Apollo 8, from walking on the moon to touching interstellar space

She remarked on the international makeup of the space station and the effort that went into its creation 250 miles above Earth, and how Crew Dragon is now part of it.

"Spaceflight gives us a chance to reflect on the context of our existence. We are reminded that we are human before any of our differences, before all of the lines are drawn that divide us," she said. "We are reminded that we're at our best when we are a part of something bigger than ourselves.

She continued: "These events remind us that we are more alike than different, that we can be united by a cause that is not based on fear, threat, or a common enemy, but rather on a bold endeavor — an insatiable curiosity to go beyond what is known and to do what has never been done. We humans were built for exploration, and we were built to do it together."

McClain and her colleagues then floated into the Crew Dragon to show it off to the world.

Inside the spaceship, McClain grabbed onto a plush Earth toy that SpaceX had strapped into a seat before launch. Musk has called the toy a "super high tech zero-gravity indicator," and it's been floating around the cabin on the end of a string since Crew Dragon entered orbit.

"On behalf of Ripley, little Earth, myself, and our crew, welcome to the Crew Dragon," she said. "These amazing feats show us not how easy our mission is, but how capable we are of doing hard things. Welcome to the new era in spaceflight."

She then spun the Earth toy with a gentle nudge:

Crew Dragon's mission is not over with docking and hatch opening. It has to pull off a series of other feats before NASA will allow astronauts on board, including a textbook landing.

Launch and docking are what Musk described on Saturday as "some of the riskiest items" in the Demo-1 mission. But undocking, deorbit, and splashdown in water are up next.

The space station crew is supposed to close the Crew Dragon's hatch sometime on Thursday, and the ship is scheduled to depart at 2 a.m. ET.

Read more: Here's what SpaceX's sleep new Crew Dragon spaceship must do to prove it's safe to fly people

Crew Dragon is then scheduled to land in the Atlantic Ocean near Kennedy Space Center on Friday around 7:30 a.m. ET. (You can watch live coverage of each major milestone here.)

If SpaceX can pull off Demo-1 with flying colors, the mission could be a major turning point for the company.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk (left), NASA astronauts Victor Glover, Doug Hurley, Bob Behnken, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, and NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins are seen inside the crew access arm with the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft visible behind them during a tour of Launch Complex 39A before the early Saturday morning launch of the Demo-1 mission, Friday, March 1, 2019 at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Joel Kowsky/NASA

"The whole goal of SpaceX was crewed spaceflight, and improving space exploration technologies — that's actually the full name of the company: Space Exploration Technologies," Musk said during a press briefing on Saturday after launch.

He added: "It's been 17 years — we still haven't launched anyone yet — but hopefully we will later this year. That would definitely be the culmination of a long dream for me and a lot of other people at SpaceX."

Data gathered by Demo-1 will be used to tweak and finalize a new Crew Dragon that will actually fly astronauts on an experimental mission called Demo-2.

SpaceX and NASA may rocket that first crewed mission toward the space station as soon as July, and veteran astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley will be on board.

"It's an incredibly sleek-looking vehicle," Hurley said during an impromptu press briefing on Friday at Kennedy Space Center, adding that it's "a lot more intuitive" than the space shuttle. He noted that instead of about 2,000 knobs, buttons, dials, switches, and other controls like a shuttle orbiter, Crew Dragon has about 30.

"We've been following the process for a few years at this point," Behnken said after launch on Sunday. "So seeing a success like this definitely gives us a lot of confidence in the future." </s> CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX’s sleek, new crew capsule arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday, acing its second milestone in just over a day.

No one was aboard the Dragon capsule launched Saturday on its first test flight, only an instrumented dummy. But that quickly changed once the hatch swung open and the space station astronauts floated inside.

“A new generation of space flight starts now with the arrival of @SpaceX’s Crew Dragon to the @Space_Station,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted. “Congratulations to all for this historic achievement getting us closer to flying American Astronauts on American rockets.”

This beefed-up, redesigned Dragon is the first American-made, designed-for-crew spacecraft to pull up to the station in eight years. The next one coming up will have its own two-man crew.

The space station’s three astronauts had front-row seats as the white 27-foot-long (8-meter-long) capsule neatly docked, a little early no less. TV cameras on Dragon as well as the station provided stunning views of one another throughout the rendezvous.

Just two hours after the Dragon’s grand entrance, the station crew entered to take air samples. The astronauts wore oxygen masks and hoods until getting the all-clear.

If the six-day demo goes well, SpaceX could launch two astronauts this summer under NASA’s commercial crew program. Both astronauts — Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken — were at SpaceX Mission Control in Southern California, observing all the action. They rushed there from Florida after watching the Dragon rocket into orbit early Saturday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

“Just super excited to see it,” Behnken said minutes after the link-up. “Just one more milestone that gets us ready for our flight coming up here.”

While SpaceX has sent plenty of cargo Dragons to the space station, crew Dragon is a different beast. It docked autonomously under the station astronauts’ watchful eyes, instead of relying on the station’s robot arm for berthing. The capsule’s nose cap was wide open like a dragon’s mouth, to expose the docking mechanism.

Behnken said that’s the way it should work when he and Hurley are on board; they may push a button or two and will have the ability to intervene, if necessary.

As part of Sunday’s shakedown, the station astronauts sent commands for the Dragon to retreat and then move forward again, before the capsule closed in for good.

SpaceX employees at company headquarters in Hawthorne, California, cheered and applauded as crew Dragon pulled up and docked at the orbiting lab, nearly 260 miles (400 kilometres) above the Pacific, north of New Zealand. They burst into applause again, several minutes later, when the Dragon’s latches were tightly secured.

The capsule’s lone passenger for launch — a mannequin wearing a white SpaceX spacesuit — remained strapped into its seat as the station’s U.S., Canadian and Russian crew removed supplies and photographed the spotless white interior. The test dummy — or Smarty as SpaceX likes to call it, given all the instrumentation — is named Ripley after the lead character in the science-fiction “Alien” films.

Dragon will remain at the space station until Friday, when it undocks and aims for a splashdown in the Atlantic, a couple hundred miles off the Florida coast.

Like Ripley, the capsule is rigged with sensors to measure noise, vibration and stresses, and to monitor the life-support, propulsion and other critical systems throughout the flight.

SpaceX aims to launch Behnken and Hurley as early as July.

Next up, though, should be Boeing, NASA’s other commercial crew provider. Boeing is looking to launch its Starliner capsule without a crew as early as April and with a crew possibly in August.

NASA is paying the two private companies $8 billion to build and operate the capsules for ferrying astronauts to and from the space station. Astronauts have been stuck riding Russian rockets ever since NASA’s space shuttle program ended in 2011. Russian Soyuz seats go for up to $82 million apiece. </s> SpaceX’s CRS-11 launch on Saturday was a success, bringing a Dragon spacecraft loaded down with nearly 6,000 lbs of supplies and research equipment on board to orbit. The twist was that SpaceX already sent this Dragon capsule up to resupply the International Space Station once before – back in September 2014, when it carried cargo to the ISS prior to being recovered and refurbished post-mission.

The successful relaunch of a recycled Dragon is another historic milestone for SpaceX, which is aiming to reuse various parts of its launch and spacecraft equipment in order to help lower the cost of getting stuff to space. This is key to its aim of making launching a lucrative and profitable business, and also to it achieving its goal of flying missions, including crewed operations, to Mars.

After SpaceX’s Falcon 9 (not a reused one, this time) delivered the Dragon to orbit, it decoupled from the craft about 10 minutes after the original liftoff, and then deployed its solar wings to harvest energy for the rest of its trip to the ISS.

The Dragon will attempt to dock with the ISS around 36 hours from launch, when space station crew will attempt to capture the craft using the facility’s 57.7-foot Canadian-made robotic arm. If this Dragon completes the rest of its mission as planned, it’ll be recovered, refurbished and hopefully reused in a future mission

SpaceX is working on Dragon 2, a capsule designed to bring crew to and from the ISS, and hopes to run test flights with astronauts on board beginning next year.

This mission included an attempt to recover the used Falcon 9 first stage, which was a success. The landing was pretty text-book from all appearances, with the rocket touching down without issue at SpaceX’s LZ-1 at Cape Canaveral Air Force base. </s> SpaceX successfully launched a Dragon spacecraft filled with supplies and science experiments for the International Space Station.

The spacecraft "Space X Dragon", launched Monday from Florida to orbit, is scheduled to join the International Space Station later this week. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, NASA, said the space capsule, loaded with 2,600 kg, was launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral.

During a prelaunch news conference, Pete Hasbrook, NASA’s associate programme scientist for International Space Station Programme Science Office at the agency’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, praised the work of Commercial Resupply Services companies.

"The International Space Station is a world-class and multi- disciplinary laboratory in space," he said. "Our commercial providers help in bringing our sciences forward and keep it going on space station and bringing benefits back to Earth." </s> SpaceX's new crew capsule arrived at the International Space Station on Sunday, acing its second milestone in just over a day.

The Dragon capsule, whose only passenger was a life-size test dummy, dubbed Ripley after the lead character in the 'Alien' movies, was launched on Saturday from Cape Canaveral on its first test flight.

Three station astronauts had front-row seats as the sleek, white vessel neatly docked and became the first American-made, designed-for-crew spacecraft to pull up in eight years.

TV cameras on Dragon as well as the space station provided stunning views of one another throughout the rendezvous.

If the six-day demo goes well, SpaceX could launch two astronauts this summer under NASA's commercial crew program.

Both astronauts - Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken - were at SpaceX Mission Control in Southern California, observing all the action. They rushed there from Florida after watching the Dragon rocket into orbit early Saturday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

'Just super excited to see it,' Behnken said minutes after the link-up. 'Just one more milestone that gets us ready for our flight coming up here.'

While SpaceX has sent plenty of cargo Dragons to the space station, crew Dragon is a different beast.

It docked autonomously under the station astronauts' watchful eyes, instead of relying on the station's robot arm for berthing.

Behnken said that's the way it should work when he and Hurley are on board; they may push a button or two and will have the ability to intervene, if necessary.

As part of Sunday's shakedown, the station astronauts sent commands for the Dragon to retreat and then move forward again, before the capsule closed in for good.

SpaceX employees at company headquarters in Hawthorne, California, cheered and applauded as crew Dragon pulled up and docked at the orbiting lab, nearly 260 miles (400 kilometers) above the Pacific, north of New Zealand.

They burst into applause again, several minutes later, when the Dragon's latches were tightly secured - just 27 hours after liftoff.

The station astronauts offered congratulations to SpaceX, as they got ready to open the hatches and collect the supplies stashed aboard Dragon.

The capsule's lone passenger, Ripley - a mannequin wearing a white SpaceX spacesuit - also was going to be welcomed aboard.

Yesterday, Elon Musk described the successful as 'super stressful' after revealing he gave the capsule just a 10 percent chance of reaching orbit.

SpaceX needs to nail the debut of the capsule, which took off from Cape Canaveral in the early hours, before putting people on board later this year.

Speaking at a press conference after the launch, Musk said: 'I almost thought we would fail. I thought maybe we'd have a 10 percent chance of reaching orbit starting out. I'm a little emotionally exhausted because that was super stressful, but it worked.'

Dragon will remain at the space station until Friday, when it undocks and aims for a splashdown in the Atlantic, a couple hundred miles off the Florida coast.

Like Ripley, the capsule is rigged with sensors to measure noise, vibration and stresses, and to monitor the life-support, propulsion and other critical systems throughout the flight.

SpaceX aims to launch Behnken and Hurley as early as July for the second space demo.

Next up, though, should be Boeing, NASA's other commercial crew provider. Boeing is looking to launch its Starliner capsule without a crew as early as April and with a crew possibly in August.

NASA is paying the two private companies $8 billion to build and operate the capsules for ferrying astronauts to and from the space station.

Astronauts have been stuck riding Russian rockets ever since NASA's space shuttle program ended in 2011. Russian Soyuz seats go for up to $82 million apiece.

An estimated 5,000 NASA and contractor employees, tourists and journalists gathered in the wee hours at Kennedy Space Center with the SpaceX launch team, as the Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from the same spot where Apollo moon rockets and space shuttles once soared.

'We are not in a space race,' he said. 'That race is over. We went to the moon and we won. It's done. Now we're in a position where we can take our time and make sure we get it right.'

The white crew Dragon is slightly bigger than cargo versions - 27 feet (8 meters) tip to tip - and considerably fancier and safer.

It features four seats, three windows, touch-screen computer displays and life-support equipment, as well as eight abort engines to pull the capsule to safety in the event of a launch emergency.

Solar cells are mounted on the spacecraft for electrical power, as opposed to the protruding solar wings on cargo Dragons.

'It's an incredibly sleek looking vehicle from the inside and it's very easy to operate,' Hurley told reporters just hours before liftoff.

He said he marvels at how the Dragon has just 30 buttons and touch screens, compared with the space shuttle cockpit's 2,000 switches and circuit breakers.

For the test, the Ripley dummy was strapped into the far left seat, wearing the company's snappy white spacesuit.

The other seats were empty, save for a small plush toy resembling Earth that was free to float once reaching zero-gravity. 'Super high tech zero-g indicator added just before launch!' Musk tweeted. </s> For the first time in the history of commercial spaceflight, a used spacecraft has blasted off on a mission to deliver cargo to the International Space Station (ISS).

After lightning strikes delayed the launch on Thursday (June 1), lingering storm clouds parted just enough for SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket to safely lift off from NASA's historic Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida today (June 3).

The Falcon 9 rocket, topped with SpaceX's first refurbished Dragon cargo craft, took to the skies at 5:07 p.m. EDT (2107 GMT). About 8 minutes after liftoff, the first-stage rocket booster returned to Earth to stick a landing at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. [Launch Photos: SpaceX's 1st Reused Dragon Spacecraft]

A little over 10 minutes into the flight, the Dragon separated from the Falcon 9's second stage, deployed its solar arrays and began its three-day trek to the ISS. On Monday (June 5), the spacecraft will dock at the space station's Harmony module, delivering close to 6,000 lbs. (2,700 kilograms) of supplies and science experiments to the Expedition 52 crew.

Today's launch marked the 100th mission to lift off from Launch Complex 39A, where NASA's Apollo missions and dozens of space shuttle missions were also launched. "For [SpaceX], it's the seventh launch this year, and you can tell that we picked up the rate significantly," Hans Koenigsmann, vice president of flight reusability at SpaceX, said in a prelaunch briefing on Wednesday (May 31).

"We are hoping to stay at this rate through the rest of the year and work our backlog down. We're hoping to also fly more and more refurbished Dragons, and the same is true for the first stages," he said. "The next launch after this is also refurbished first stage."

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a used Dragon cargo craft blasts off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 3, 2017. (Image credit: SpaceX)

Another historic 1st for SpaceX

Today's mission is the latest in a series of historic firsts for SpaceX, the private spaceflight company founded by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. In March, the company successfully launched and landed a used rocket booster for the first time. SpaceX is also the first and only company to have landed a rocket booster during an orbital mission (though Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin has achieved this multiple times on suborbital journeys). And in 2012, SpaceX's Dragon capsule became the first private spacecraft to dock at the ISS.

With the ultimate (and highly ambitious) goal of being able to reuse all major components of their launch vehicles, SpaceX is now putting the Dragon to the test. The capsule first flew on a cargo mission to the space station on Sept. 21, 2014, for the cargo resupply mission CRS-4, and it returned to Earth with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean one month later.

"Once this capsule landed, we refurbished it, inspected it, made sure everything is qualified for the next flight," Koenigsmann said.

But the capsule isn't 100 percent reused parts, Koenigsmann added. Certain parts had to be replaced for a number of reasons, such as exposure to seawater during splashdown, he said, and the heat shield needed to be replaced for safety. "But I can tell you the majority of this Dragon has been in space before and has been docked to the station for a couple of weeks."

The next steps toward full reusability for SpaceX involve figuring out how to refurbish the second-stage rocket booster and the payload fairings — an ambitious but important goal, Koenigsmann said.

"This whole notion of reuse is something that's very important to the entire space industry and NASA as well as Space X and others," Kirk Shireman, manager of NASA's ISS program, said in the briefing. "The idea of reuse is important for economic reasons as well as technical reasons." [SpaceX Gaining Substantial Cost Savings From Reused Falcon 9]

Science on board

Along with food, water, clothing and other gear for the astronauts at the space station, the Dragon will deliver plenty of science experiments.

The experiments on board will support about 220 investigations currently happening at the space station. "They span a multitude of scientific disciplines, including biological research, the physical sciences, the human research that we're doing with the astronauts, the technology demonstration studying Earth and space from the ISS, and then last but not least, the educational activities that students have an opportunity to participate in," Camille Alleyne, an associate space station program scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said at the briefing.

One astrophysics experiment, called the Neutron star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER), will investigate the possibility of utilizing neutron stars — the ultradense cores of dead stars — to develop a type of interstellar GPS navigation system.

A new, experimental type of solar panel is also flying to the space station on the Dragon. Called the Roll Out Solar Array (ROSA), these new solar arrays are smaller, lighter and more efficient than the current solar panels that power the ISS.

The Dragon also contains some live passengers, including 40 mice and thousands of fruit flies. For a project called Rodent Research-5, the mice will help researchers study a new drug for osteoporosis, or bone density loss. The fruit flies will help investigators study the prolonged effects of spaceflight on the human heart.

More Earth-observation instruments are also on their way to the ISS. The Multiple-User System for Earth Sensing (MUSES) facility, developed by Teledyne Brown Engineering, contains new high-resolution digital cameras and hyperspectral imagers, bringing new capabilities to the space station's suite of Earth-observing technologies.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com. </s> WASHINGTON: SpaceX's new Dragon capsule successfully docked on the International Space Station on Sunday (Mar 3), NASA and SpaceX confirmed during a live broadcast of the mission.

"We can confirm hard capture is complete," NASA said.

The announcement was met with applause at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

The docking began at 1051 GMT (6.51pm Singapore time), more than 400km above the Earth's surface, north of New Zealand - and 27 hours after the capsule's launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Although the contact appeared slow, the ISS and the capsule were moving at a speed of over 27,000kph in orbit around the Earth.

On board the ISS, the crew - American Anne McClain, Russian Oleg Kononenko, and Canadian David Saint-Jacques - were scheduled to open the airlock at 1330 GMT.

The mission is a test launch with only a dummy on board the capsule ahead of a manned flight scheduled for later this year.

The Dragon capsule will remain on the ISS until Friday before detaching to splash down in the Atlantic. It will be slowed by four parachutes, in what is the one of the mission's riskiest stages.

The launch is a key step towards resuming manned space flights from US soil after an eight-year break.

After the shuttle program was shut down in July 2011 following a 30-year run, NASA began outsourcing the logistics of its space missions.

It pays Russia to get its people up to the ISS orbiting research facility at a cost of US$82 million per head for a round trip.

In 2014, the US space agency awarded contracts to SpaceX and Boeing for them to take over this task. </s> SpaceX's new Dragon capsule successfully docked on the International Space Station on Sunday, NASA and SpaceX confirmed during a live broadcast of the mission.

"We can confirm hard capture is complete," NASA said.

The announcement was met with applause at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

The docking began at 1051 GMT, more than 248 miles (400 kilometers) above the Earth's surface, north of New Zealand -- and 27 hours after the capsule's launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Although the contact appeared slow, the ISS and the capsule were moving at a speed of over 27,000 kilometers per hour in orbit around the Earth.

On board the ISS, the crew -- American Anne McClain, Russian Oleg Kononenko, and Canadian David Saint-Jacques -- were scheduled to open the airlock at 1330 GMT.

The mission is a test launch with only a dummy on board the capsule ahead of a manned flight scheduled for later this year.

The Dragon capsule will remain on the ISS until Friday before detaching to splash down in the Atlantic. It will be slowed by four parachutes, in what is the one of the mission's riskiest stages.

The launch is a key step towards resuming manned space flights from US soil after an eight-year break.

After the shuttle program was shut down in July 2011 following a 30-year run, NASA began outsourcing the logistics of its space missions.

It pays Russia to get its people up to the ISS orbiting research facility at a cost of $82 million per head for a round trip.

In 2014, the US space agency awarded contracts to SpaceX and Boeing for them to take over this task.
SpaceX's unmanned spacecraft Dragon 2 successfully docks with the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time.