SpaceX Dragon Launches Successfully and Heads to ISS

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    Today at 4:35 Moscow time, Space Exploration Technologies, also known as SpaceX, successfully launched the Falcon 9 launch vehicle from the U.S. Air Force base Cape Canaveral in Florida, which launched the Dragon cargo spacecraft into space. This launch was the first of 12 that SpaceX will carry out under a contract with NASA.



    The 50-meter Falcon 9 booster rocket successfully broke away from the launch pad, partially pierced the cloudy sky, and set off to meet the International Space Station (ISS) along a wide arc above the oceans. The cargo compartment of the Dragon spaceship is filled with 400 kilograms of cargo for the ISS, including food, clothing, scientific instruments and some equipment for the space station, including a specialized refrigerator in which some medical samples will be delivered from orbit to Earth. But a cargo of chocolate-vanilla ice cream for the crew was sent into orbit in this refrigerator.

    Recall that in the month of May of this year, SpaceX carried out a test launch of the Dragon spaceship, which arrived and successfully docked with the space station. With this successful test, the company secured a green light contract with NASA for $ 1.6 billion, under which 12 flights of Dragon cargo spacecraft will be carried out, which will deliver various cargoes to the ISS and back to Earth.

    Since the completion of the Space Shuttle program last year, the ISS has been supplied with cargo by Russian, European and Japanese cargo spacecraft. Now, America can also be added to this list in the person of SpaceX and Orbital Sciences Corp., whose Antares launch vehicle will be scheduled to go into space later this year.

    If the entire flight of the Dragon spaceship passes according to a pre-planned scenario, then the spacecraft will be loaded with a ton of spent scientific equipment, experimental results and will be sent back to Earth on October 28, 2012.

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