Dragon, Progress freighters bring 5 tons of cargo to ISS
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SpaceX’s CRS-19 Dragon spacecraft approaches the International Space Station. Credit: NASA
The International Space Station received two resupply vehicles over the weekend, bringing more than five metric tons of cargo for the six-person Expedition 61 crew.
On Dec. 8 SpaceX’s CRS-19 Dragon capsule rendezvoused with the orbiting outpost. Once it was about 10 meters beneath the Destiny module, the station crew used the Canadarm2 robotic arm to capture the vehicle, which was then berthed to the Earth-facing port of the Harmony module.
After leak checks, Expedition 61 Commander Luca Parmitano, along with NASA’s Jessica Meir and Drew Morgan, opened the hatch to Dragon and started unpacking the vehicle, which included more than 1,600 kilograms of food, supplies and experiments.
Then at 10:35 UTC Dec. 9, Russia’s Progress MS-13 spacecraft docked with the Earth-facing port of the Pirs module. The hatch between it and the station was opened shortly after, according to NASA, by Russian cosmonauts Aleksandr Skvortsov and Oleg Skripochka.
These vehicles both took three days to get to the ISS following their launches. CRS-19 Dragon launched atop a Falcon 9 at 17:29 UTC Dec. 5 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Progress MS-13 took to the skies roughly 16 hours later at 9:34 UTC Dec. 6 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
Dragon is currently scheduled to stay at the ISS until Jan. 6, 2020. It will then be unberthed and released from the outpost to begin moving away and preparing for a deorbit burn several hours later.
Progress MS-13 approaches the Pirs module at the International Space Station. Credit: Roscosmos
Meanwhile, Progress MS-13 is expected to remain at its docking port until July 2020.
The Expedition 61 crew will get a little short break from visiting vehicle arrival and departure activities. The next spacecraft scheduled to travel to the outpost, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner, is slated to launch Dec. 20.
Starliner’s Orbital Flight Test mission is expected to be a week-long, unpiloted mission to the ISS. It will dock with an international docking adapter at the forward end of the outpost about a day after launch.
Assuming all goes well with the mission, Boeing hopes to send the Crew Flight Test Starliner spacecraft with people to the outpost in the first half of 2020.
The visiting vehicles docked or berthed at the ISS as of Dec. 9, 2019. Credit: Orbital Velocity
