A SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying nearly 5,500 pounds of supplies and science experiments arrived safely at the International Space Station early Thursday, a day later than planned after an aborted rendezvous Wednesday.
French astronaut Thomas Pesquet steered a 58-foot robotic arm to snare the unmanned Dragon at 5:44 p.m. EST, as the two spacecraft flew 250 miles above northwestern Australia.
"Looks like we got a great capture," crewmate and Expedition 50 commander Shane Kimbrough radioed to flight controllers in Houston.
"Great job with Dragon capture, and sorry about the delays," responded NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins, who was communicating with the crew from the ground. "Now the real work starts."
Pesquet said the six-person space station crew was "very happy" to have Dragon on board and complemented the public-private partnership behind the commercial resupply mission that launched Sunday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center.
"Such a strong partnership between agencies and commercial entities together with the international partners is without a doubt the future of space exploration, and we’re paving the way every day on the ISS," he said.
Dragon captured. Second time a charm! Now to unload the supplies... https://t.co/DAUvTFHXT1
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) February 23, 2017
Within a few hours, robotics teams on the ground were expected to attach the Dragon to the Earth-facing port of the station's Harmony module.
The crew planned to open the Dragon's hatch later in the day to begin removing time-sensitive science experiments.
More than half of the cargo hauled up by the Dragon is dedicated to science research, including a pair of NASA climate-monitoring instruments stowed in the spacecraft's unpressurized "trunk" that will be removed robotically.
