ISS Robotic Arm Captures Dragon Capsule

puddingebola writes "From the aricle, 'The SpaceX Dragon capsule has been successfully grabbed by the International Space Station, marking the first time a private American space flight has run a supply mission to the orbiting platform. The crew of the ISS snatched Dragon out of orbit ahead of schedule, using the space station's robotic arm to guide the capsule in after its careful approach.' NASA has also posted video of the docking."

Comments

Video of the capture

[2phar]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wcknJwgzh4

Re:Video of the capture

[stjobe]

That video... sure isn't action-packed.

At first I thought I was watching a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Like 2001, this video is interesting but slow :)

Re:Video of the capture

[Teancum]

There is a reason it looks like 2001: A Space Odyssey.

That movie was based upon reality due to the fact that the director, Stanley Kubrick, wanted to portray something realistic considering that there were real spacecraft going to real places (like the Moon) at the time he was making and released the film. Most other "science fiction" movies gloss over this reality in a horrible way. The only time you get something action packed is when something goes horribly wrong... and perhaps at launch when huge amounts of energy are being released.

Then again do you enjoy watching videos of your father parking his car in the driveway?

Re:Second?

[Tx]

I seem to be wrong, according to wikipedia, there was demo flight in May, my memory ain't what it used to be. I guess since that is classed as a test rather than a supply mission, hence the "first" in TFA.

just a thought...

[PopeRatzo]

I don't have time to read all the details, but I don't think we should be messing with any dragons.

I've read enough books to know it usually doesn't end well.

Ahead of schedule capture

[jfholcomb]

Anyone else think that the reason they got it done so fast was the little freezer full of ice cream on board?

Second docking but first contracted supply mission

[Geoffrey.landis]

Right, in May they demonstrated docking to the Space Station, but it wasn't a supply mission, it was a launch and docking demonstration flight. That first flight did carry some miscellaneous stuff and some student experiments, but it wasn't carrying supplies critical to station operation.

As the summary says, this was the first actual contracted supply mission.

Re:We need space exploration by any method possibl

[beltsbear]

A single lightning strike has about 5 billion joules of energy or enough to run an entire household for a month not just one bulb.

Re:Second?

[Speare]

Yes, this follows a long trend of marketing hyperbole and rationalization. For example, a car is voted "best in its class," say the ads. The ads don't explain that the "class" is carefully gerrymandered to only include two models, one of which has been out of production for a decade. I've taught my daughter that every adjective is making the marketing claim less impressive, not more impressive. It may very well be the best four-wheel cross-over sport utility soft-topped off-road casual zero-emission vehicle built in North America, but that's not saying much.

Re:Yes but...

[Talderas]

http://xkcd.com/605/

Describes you. I think.