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A SpaceX Dragon cargo ship approaches the International Space Station to deliver nearly 3 tons of refueling on July 2, 2018 camera. This is the second voyage of the Dragon to the space station
Credit: NASA TV
A SpaceX Dragon cargo ship arrived on Monday, July 2 at the International Space Station, carrying nearly 3 tons of supplies for astronauts, including super-caffeinated coffee, Texas blueberries and a special treat: ice cream bars.
The Dragon, which the astronauts captured with the help of a robotic arm around 6:45 am EDT (1054 GMT), carries a batch of Death Wish Coffee – billed "We love to keep our super-caffeinated astronauts because they're working harder, "joked Kirk Shireman, director of NASA's space station program just after SpaceX's Dragon launch. mission Friday (June 29). Jokes aside, Shireman said that he tried coffee. It was different and new, and it's really the point behind all the goodies on this flight. [In Photos: SpaceX’s Dazzling Dragon Launch to Space Station]
"Food is a huge psychological benefit," Shireman said. "When you live in a closed environment, you eat the same menu every 8 or 9 days, and then you repeat. So, having something different is a real treat."
Texas blueberries are part of a traditional load of fresh fruits and vegetables that make up a fraction of 5,900 lbs. (2,700 kilograms) of supplies transported to the space station for NASA on the Dragon spacecraft. But ice cream, says Shireman, is very special.
"Do not tell the crew, but there are frozen treats that will be there too, some ice cream bars," he said. "Very little, unfortunately, because most of our frozen space is for science."
In fact, 3 874 lbs. (1,757 kg) of cargo on board Dragon – more than half of its supplies – are dedicated to science. This equipment includes new plants to grow, such as lettuce and wasabi mustard, as well as an experiment to test how seaweed could serve as a potential food source and spur the life of space missions.
Freeze-dried coffee bags of Death Wish prepared for use 39; crew of the International Expedition International Space Station
A microgravity experiment will test the effectiveness of cancer treatment drugs, while another piece of equipment – Spaceborne Ecosystem NASA Space Station Spacecraft (or ECOSTRESS) – will be mounted outside the station to track how plants on Earth are responding to heat stress and lack of water.
And finally, there is the CIMON (Crew Interactive Mobile Companion), the first robot of artificial intelligence to visit the space station. CIMON is an almost spherical droid built for the German Space Agency (DLR) by Airbus, an aerospace company based in the Netherlands. It is powered by the IBM Watson system and can see, hear and talk with astronauts. German astronaut Alexander Gerst, of the European Space Agency, will test how CIMON can be used to promote human-robot cooperation in space as part of the DLR experiment.
A small robot named CIMON (abbreviation for "Crew Interactive Mobile Companion") will arrive at the International Space Station on July 2, 2018. CIMON is the first robot with artificial intelligence to fly to space.
Credit: DLR / T. Bourry / ESA
The arrival of Dragon today marked the 15th SpaceX mission to the US space station for NASA under a contract multi-billion dollar replenishment. The Dragon used on this flight visited the space station before, in 2016, to deliver NASA supplies on SpaceX's CRS-9 mission. The first step of the Falcon 9 rocket used to launch Dragon also flew into the space before. SpaceX has used it to launch NASA's ex-planetary TESS mission in April. According to Jessica Jensen, director of the company's Dragon Mission Management, SpaceX hopes to be able to fly Dragon vehicles at least three times as part of its reusable rocket and spacecraft program.
Dragon will remain connected to the space station back to Earth filled with scientific experiments results and other gear. NASA officials said its arrival today marks the 30th time that astronauts have captured a visiting spacecraft with the Canadarm2 robotic arm of the station, built by the Canadian Space Agency.
It was therefore appropriate, according to the space agency, for Dragon and the space station to sail over Quebec, Canada, when NASA astronauts Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel attacked the spacecraft with the arms. After all, NASA officials said yesterday that it was Canada Day.
"We are looking forward to exciting weeks as we unload science and begin great experiments," Feustel told Mission Control. The crew of Expedition 56 includes Feustel, Arnold, Gerst, NASA astronaut Serena Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Sergei Prokopev. Feustel commands the six-month mission.
"You made that seem easy," said Pooja Jesrani, a spaceship communicator, radioing Mission Control at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Email Tariq Malik at [email protected] or follow him @tariqjmalik . Follow us on @Spacedotcom Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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