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By Tariq Malik, Space.com
A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station Sunday (Aug. 27) to ferry a new astronaut crew to the orbiting lab to begin a half-year mission.
The Crew Dragon capsule Endurance docked at the International Space Station (ISS) at 9:16 a.m. EDT (1313 GMT), where it parked itself at a space-facing port on the outpost’s U.S.-built Harmony module after flying a wide loop around the orbital outpost. Dragon and the station were soaring 261 miles above Australia at the time.
“Thank you so much,” Crew-7 commander Jasmin Moghbeli of NASA radioed to SpaceX mission control after the successful docking. “I have to keep reminding myself that this is not a dream.”
The docking marked the end of a nearly 30-hour journey for the capsule’s four-person crew, which launched in the wee hours of Saturday from NASA’s Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But it is also the start of something bigger, a six-month mission for Moghbeli and her three crewmates.
“This is the first step of the journey, the real mission begins now,” Crew-7 pilot Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency radioed SpaceX. “Aboard the International Space Station, we have a lot of work ahead of us that we look forward to.”
The Crew-7 astronauts opened between their Dragon and the ISS at 10:58 a.m. EDT (1458 GMT) to join the seven astronauts already aboard the station. All 11 astronauts then gathered for a short welcome ceremony to begin their joint mission.
Read the full article here: https://www.space.com/spacex-crew-7-space-station-docking
Photo Credit: Space.com
