Jane Edwards
SpaceX completed Thursday a static fire test on Falcon 9 rocket’s Merlin 1D engines at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in preparation for the Monday launch of the Dragon spacecraft as part of the company’s 12th commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station, Spaceflight Now reported Thursday.
The spacecraft is scheduled to take off aboard Falcon 9 at 12:31 p.m. Eastern time Monday to deliver approximately 6,200 pounds of crew supplies and experiments to the ISS.
The cargo capsule will carry a plant growth experiment, a habitat for a mice study that aims to assess the impact of long-term spaceflight missions on vision and other biological experiments to the ISS.
Dragon is expected to reach the space laboratory Wednesday at around 7 a.m. Eastern time and astronauts Paolo Nespoli and Jack Fischer will use a robotic arm to capture the vehicle.
The spacecraft will stay moored to the orbiting laboratory’s Harmony module for a month before it leaves for Earth in September with hardware and return specimens.
SpaceX originally planned to launch the 12th CRS mission on Sunday but pushed back the liftoff to Monday.
