Dragon spacecraft with solar panels deployed, image courtesy of SpaceX
NASA and SpaceX have agreed on the private spacecraft company’s first date with the International Space Station, according to the space agency. The SpaceX Dragon capsule will launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket Nov. 30th and will rendezvous and dock with the ISS Dec. 7th, NewScientist.com reported on Tuesday. The original plan had been for two missions. One was for a rendezvous and the second for the actual docking. However, after a successful test flight ,SpaceX requested that NASA combine the two missions.
“We technically have agreed with SpaceX that we want to combine those flights,” William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s associate administrator for space operations, said. “We are doing all the planning to go ahead and have those missions combined, but we haven’t given them formal approval yet.”
The rub for the U.S., though, is that even if the Dragon mission is successful, U.S. astronauts will still depend on launches aboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft until the private vehicle is human-rated by NASA.
