Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques pronounced the docking flawless and called it a beautiful thing to see’
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A sleek new American-built capsule with just a test dummy aboard docked smoothly with the International Space Station on Sunday in a big step toward putting the U.S. back in the business of launching astronauts.
If this six-day test flight goes well, a Dragon capsule could take two NASA astronauts to the orbiting outpost this summer. — Intl. Space Station March 3, 2019Ever since NASA retired the space shuttle in 2011, the U.S. has been hitching rides to and from the space station aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft. In the meantime, NASA is paying two companies — SpaceX and Boeing — to build and operate its next generation of rocket ships.
As the capsule closed in on the space station, its nose cap was wide open like a dragon’s mouth to expose the docking mechanism. In a docking with a crew aboard, the capsule would likewise operate autonomously, though the astronauts may push a button or two and would be able to intervene if necessary.
As part of Sunday’s shakedown, the space station astronauts sent commands for Dragon to retreat and then move forward again, before the capsule closed in for good. SpaceX employees at company headquarters in Hawthorne, California, cheered the docking, then burst into applause again when the Dragon’s latches were secured.
“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.”
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