Here be Dragons
FollowOn May 11, a Dragon will mate with the International Space station. Rather than some mythical creature, this Dragon is of human artifice. The Dragon’s rendezvous and berthing with the International Space Station presages a new chapter in human exploration of space.
The significance of this event is Dragon is a reusable spacecraft, developed, and built by the American company Space Exploration Technologies, SpaceX, as it is more commonly known. Established in 2002, SpaceX has developed a new family of launch and cargo and crew capsules from the ground up.
The commercial race to space
NASA has now “set it sights on exploring once again beyond low earth orbit.
Delay to launching the Dragon: http://bit.ly/JdCRjL The long-awaited launch of a commercial cargo ship bound for the International Space Station almost certainly will be delayed from May 7 to at least May 10 and possibly longer, sources said late Tuesday, to give company engineers additional time to complete pre-flight tests and checkout.
Launch of SpaceX’s first Dragon spacecraft to visit the International Space Station (ISS) has been set for a new target date of May 19, following consultations between SpaceX and NASA. http://bit.ly/K5r6Q4 The new launch date is a product of a busy schedule of ISS flight activities that Dragon needs to fit into alongside other launches and vehicles from around the globe.