SpaceX Dragon Counts Down to Launch for Station Resupply Mission

NASA is streaming live coverage as it prepares for the launch of the 35th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station for the agency. Watch online at:  

https://www.nasa.gov/live

Loaded with more than 6,300 pounds of supplies, a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 rocket will launch from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Dragon will dock autonomously with the space-facing port of the station's Harmony module at approximately 11 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 15. NASA's live rendezvous and docking coverage begins at 9:15 a.m.

Aboard Dragon is the final pair of International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Arrays. The arrays will augment the orbiting laboratory's power system and increase available electricity for research, operations, and the station's safe and controlled deorbit. Astronauts will install the arrays during a series of spacewalks planned for later this fall.

Dragon also is delivering several new experiments, including hardware to manufacture artificial retinas in microgravity that could help restore vision for patients on Earth and 3D heart tissue models to advance large-scale drug testing on future space missions. Dragon also will carry materials to study how a new type of glass is formed in microgravity, and brain organoids that could uncover potential treatment targets for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and multiple sclerosis.

Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog, @space_station on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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