Elon Musk’s SpaceX has successfully launched the latest Dragon ship to the International Space Station. The launch happened on the 6th of December 2020. The new Dragon ship called Falcon 9 is the advanced version of the former Dragon supply ship.
The launch was originally scheduled to happen on the 5th of December, however, the weather conditions were not favorable for the launch. The success rate of the mission was predicted to be only 50 percent due to bad weather. SpaceX chose to play safe and delay the operation by a day. The date, 5th December is special for the company, as it had launched the CRS-16 and CRS-18 in the years 2018, and, 2019 respectively. Despite the delay, the mission was successful. The Dragon was launched from the NASA Kennedy Space Centre. It was the company’s 21st successful supply run for NASA.
This launch was a landmark for SpaceX because it was Falcon 9’s 100 successful launch. The cargo weighed approximately 2900 kilos consisting of supplies for experiments and food and Christmas gifts for the crew. Interestingly, the supplies also contained mice, that will be used for experimentation. Additionally, this is the first time there will be two “Dragons” together: the crew Dragon Resilience and the cargo Dragon. SpaceX is having a great year with so many consecutive successful launches.
This was one of the many successful missions that SpaceX has had in 2020, the exact number being 24. SpaceX has a contract with NASA worth 3.04 billion dollars to launch 20 resupply flights. Other projects of SpaceX include a communications satellite, called Sirius XM, which is expected to launch on the 10th of December, and Starship, its rocket for the planet Mars.
With the speed and intensity SpaceX is progressing, we are sure there are many more exciting developments in store for us. SpaceX has given hope to all space enthusiasts about space exploration.
This post was last modified on December 7, 2020 11:19 pm