Dragon Arrives at Station — An Hour Early

UPDATE: March 3, 2013, 10:35 am EST:   Dragon was successfully berthed with the Earth-facing docking port on the Harmony node at 8:56 am EST.

UPDATE, March 3, 2013, 6:45 am EST: The Canadian Space Agency is showing live video of their berthing operation. Also on SpaceX’s website. Not on NASA TV as of 6:45 am EST.

ORIGINAL STORY:  March 3, 2013, 6:30 am EST:  SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft was grappled by a robotic arm aboard the International Space Station (ISS) at 5:31 am Eastern Standard Time (EST) this morning, an hour ahead of schedule.   NASA tweeted that NASA TV will resume coverage at 6:30 am EST to show the berthing operation where it is installed onto an ISS docking port, although NASA’s website says berthing itself will not occur until 9:40 am EST. 

NASA astronauts Kevin Ford and Tom Marshburn used the ISS robotic arm, Canadarm2, to catch Dragon after it maneuvered itself close enough for capture.  Dragon is shown attached to the arm in the photo below.

Photo credit:  NASA

Dragon in carrying supplies and scientific experiments for the ISS crew.   The plan is for it to remain at the space station until March 25 and then return to Earth.   This is SpaceX’s second Commercial Resupply Service (CRS) flight for NASA and is designated CRS-2.

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA), which built Canadarm2, tweeted that its Canadarm2 operations team will be in charge of the berthing operation from the ground in order to free crew time for other activities.

CanadianSpaceAgency‏@csa_asc

#CSA is berthing #Dragon from the ground to free the crew’s time for other activities after a job well done!

Canada is one of the 15 international partners for the ISS program and Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield is the commander of the ISS right now.