SpaceX sends Dragon resupply spacecraft to International Space Station with Christmas gift

NASA’s commercial cargo provider SpaceX on December 6 launched Dragon resupply spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) at  11:17 a.m. The 21st commercial resupply services (CRS-21) mission’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

SpaceX’s CRS-21 will deliver science investigations, supplies, and equipment for NASA under its second resupply contract. For the first time, Elon Musk owned space agency has at least 2 of its capsules in the orbit with the recent upgraded Dragon spacecraft’s launch. 

"Dragons everywhere you look," Kenny Todd, NASA’s deputy space station program manager told AP, adding that the SpaceX aims to have at least one permanent capsule at ISS.

The first-stage booster in its fourth flight landed on an ocean platform which was used in a mission by SpaceX back in May. Calling the supplies the "ultimate Christmas present" for NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, Todd informed that the Dragon was carrying microbes and crushed asteroid samples for a biomining study, rapid blood test results devices, and forty mice for bone and eye research among many other items in 6,400-pound (2,900-kilogram) shipment. 

[A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on a resupply mission to the International Space Station lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. Credit: NASA]

[SpaceX’s Dragon cargo craft is seen during final approach to the International Space Station. Credit: NASA]

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Supplies for Expeditions 64 and 65

Meanwhile, NASA informed in a release that the Dragon spacecraft will be filled with supplies and payloads, including critical materials to directly support more than 250 science and research investigations that will occur during Expeditions 64 and 65. 

It added, that the Dragon’s trunk will transport the Nanoracks Bishop Airlock to transfer payloads between the inside and outside of the station. This will be NASA’s first commercially funded space station airlock to ISS, the space agency informed. The airlock delivered by Dragon will help the astronauts onboard ISS in robotics testing, and satellite deployment, meanwhile serving as a space toolbox. 

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(Image Credit: NASA)