Three tons of supplies and payloads for the International Space Station are scheduled for a Monday afternoon launch at the Kennedy Space Center, SpaceX said in a press release on Wednesday.
The Dragon spacecraft, launched atop the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, will deliver nearly 6,000 pounds of supplies and payloads, including materials to support more than 250 science and research experiments, the release said.
"The launch date would result in a grapple of the Dragon spacecraft on August 16 at approximately 7 a.m. EDT (11 a.m. GMT) by astronauts Jack Fischer of NASA and Paolo Nespoli of ESA [European Space Agency]," the release stated.
The 12:31 p.m. (4:31 p.m. GMT) launch on Monday will begin the 12th commercial resupply services flight for SpaceX, the release noted.
The Dragon spacecraft will spend about one month attached to the space station before returning to Earth for a splashdown off Northern Mexico's Pacific Coast, the release said.
Dragon to be packed with new experiments for International Space Station
The International Space Station is a unique scientific platform enabling researchers from around the world to develop experiments that could not be performed on Earth. A line of unpiloted resupply spacecraft keeps this work going, supporting efforts to enable future human and robotic exploration of destinations well beyond low-Earth orbit.
The next mission to the space station will be the … read more
