Watch Live as SpaceX Attempts to Launch Its New Cargo Capsule to the ISS

NASA is gearing as much as launch a cargo mission to the International Space Station, delivering provides and a brand new batch of experiments aboard a model new SpaceX Dragon capsule.

The launch of the twenty sixth industrial resupply mission is slated for no sooner than 3:54 p.m. (all occasions Eastern) on Tuesday from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Dragon capsule will probably be connected to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, and is scheduled to dock with the ISS on Wednesday at 5:57 a.m. NASA will start its reside protection of the launch at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

You can tune into the motion reside by way of NASA TV, in addition to the house company’s app and website, or by way of the feed beneath.

For the most recent mission, NASA’s industrial associate SpaceX will debut a brand new Dragon cargo capsule, named C211. Tuesday’s launch will mark the the primary flight of C211, which is the third Dragon 2 cargo spacecraft constructed by SpaceX, according to Space News. “This is the last new cargo Dragon spacecraft we plan to build,” Sarah Walker, director of Dragon mission administration at SpaceX, is quoted in SpaceNews as saying throughout a press briefing on November 18. “We recently decided to build one more crewed spacecraft as well.”

As the identify suggests, the CRS-26 mission marks SpaceX’s twenty sixth uncrewed resupply mission to the ISS as a part of the corporate’s ongoing partnership with NASA to launch payloads to the orbiting house station. SpaceX additionally transports astronauts to the ISS underneath a industrial crew contract with NASA, sending the fifth crew to the house station in October.

The mission was initially scheduled to launch on Monday, however its liftoff was pushed back a day after a leak was detected within the Dragon capsule’s thermal management system.

CRS-26 will carry round 7,700 kilos (3,500 kilograms) of provides and experiments to the ISS together with 4, shoe-box sized satellites to review satellite tv for pc communication strategies, house climate, and take a look at new expertise for robotic meeting of huge telescopes, according to NASA.

The payload may also embrace a plant progress experiment dubbed Veggie, and it’s an effort to develop tomatoes on board the ISS for astronauts to munch on whereas residing on the station. “We also are examining the overall effect of growing, tending, and eating crops on crew behavioral health,” Gioia Massa, NASA Life Sciences venture scientist and VEG-05 principal investigator, mentioned in a statement. “All of this will provide valuable data for future space exploration.”

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