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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – SpaceX's new crew capsule has arrived at the International Space Station, taking a second step in just over a day.
Nobody was aboard the Dragon capsule launched Saturday for his first test flight, only an instrumented mannequin. But the three astronauts had places in the front row, the Dragon being perfectly moored on Sunday morning and becoming the first American-made spacecraft designed for the crew to hoist itself in eight years.
Confirmed capture! After making 18 earth orbits since its launch, @SpaceXS #CrewDragon spaceship successfully attached to the @Space station via "soft capture" at 5:51 am ET while the station was traveling just north of New Zealand. Watch: https://t.co/oJKHgK8eV7 pic.twitter.com/xO1rU5cAMM
– NASA (@NASA) March 3, 2019
If the six-day demo goes well, SpaceX could launch two astronauts this summer as part of NASA's commercial crew program. The two astronauts were at SpaceX Mission Control in California, watching all the action.
While SpaceX has sent a lot of cargo dragons to the space station, the Dragon crew is a different beast. He moored independently, instead of relying on the robotic arm of the station.
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