Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

A SpaceX Dragon spaceship is carrying lots of fresh fruit to ISS

By
Add as a preferred source on Google
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching on Monday, June 5, 2023.
SpaceX
Promotional image for Tech For Change. Person standing on solar panel looking at sunset.
Tech for Change
This story is part of Tech for Change: an ongoing series in which we shine a spotlight on positive uses of technology, and showcase how they're helping to make the world a better place.

A cargo-filled spaceship is on its way to the International Space Station (ISS) following a successful launch from the Kennedy Space Center at 11:47 a.m. ET on Monday, June 5.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket powered a Dragon spacecraft to orbit in the spaceflight company’s 38th launch this year. It was the fifth flight of this Falcon 9 rocket and the fourth for the Dragon, highlighting the reusability element of the company’s spaceflight system.

Recommended Videos

The clip below shows the 28th Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-28) getting underway on Monday.

Liftoff! pic.twitter.com/alTnpRy2Bu

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 5, 2023

Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first-stage booster returned to Earth and landed on the Just a Shortfall of Gravitas droneship in the Atlantic Ocean.

Falcon 9’s first stage has landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship pic.twitter.com/AS5e7fJcQ9

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) June 5, 2023

Dragon will autonomously dock to the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module at about 5:50 a.m. ET on Tuesday, June 6, with NASA astronauts Woody Hoburg and Frank Rubio monitoring the procedure from inside the ISS.

Live coverage of Dragon’s arrival will be shown on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the agency’s YouTube channel starting at 4:15 a.m. ET.

Once docked, the ISS crew will unload the cargo, which besides science gear also includes crew treats such as apples, blueberries, grapefruit, oranges, cherry tomatoes, and various cheeses, NASA said.

Also aboard the ISS is another pair of IROSAs (International Space Station Roll Out Solar Arrays). This will be the third set of rollout arrays launching in the SpaceX Dragon’s trunk, and once installed on the exterior of the ISS will help provide a 20% to 30% increase in power for space station research and operations, according to the space agency.

As part of work by students from York University in Toronto to advance climate monitoring efforts, the cargo also includes a camera that will observe snow and ice coverage in northern Canada.

Other research heading to the orbital outpost includes Genes in Space-10, a student-designed DNA experiment sponsored by the ISS National Laboratory, and the next generation of seeds for NASA’s Plant Habitat-03, which look at plant adaptation to the space environment.

Dragon will stay parked at the ISS for the rest of this month before returning to Earth with research and other cargo for an ocean landing off the coast of Florida.

Trevor Mogg
Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
Topics
SpaceX Starship reaches orbit for the first time but its historic flight ends early
Starship reaches orbit for the first time and deploys 26 Starlink satellites before an early splashdown.
spacex-starship

After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180

Read more
Starship is finally going orbital, and SpaceX has picked September 22
Flight 14 is aiming for orbit, Starlink V3 deployment and a very long day in space.
Starship rocket.

SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.

Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver

Read more
Want a city on the Moon? Scientists say there’s not enough water
A billion tons still comes up short
Artist impression of activities in a Moon Base.

For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.

A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.

Read more