Crew Gears Up for Dragon Cargo Mission amid Earth Studies

The Strait of Gibraltar connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Mediterranean Sea
The Strait of Gibraltar connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Mediterranean Sea and separates Spain on the European continent from Morocco on the African continent.

The Expedition 62 crew is gearing up for next week’s space delivery aboard a U.S. cargo craft continuing the upkeep of International Space Station systems.

SpaceX has completed a successful static fire test of its Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center. The Dragon resupply ship will be perched atop the Falcon 9 when it blasts off toward the station on Friday at 11:50 p.m. EST.

Flight Engineers Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan will be in the cupola Monday to capture Dragon at approximately 7 a.m. Morgan will command the Canadarm2 to reach out and grapple Dragon as Meir monitors its approach and rendezvous. NASA TV will broadcast both the launch and capture activities live.

The NASA duo practiced their robotics activities today and configured the station to receive the more than 5,600 pounds of cargo packed inside Dragon. Morgan started the day setting up a specialized habitat to house mice being delivered next week aboard the U.S. space freighter. Meir was also making space and organizing the Japanese Kibo laboratory module to make room for the new hardware.

Commander Oleg Skripochka of Roscosmos worked on Earth observation research today ending one experiment and starting another. He finalized a run of the student-operated EarthKAM investigation this morning shutting down gear and stowing hardware. In the afternoon, the veteran cosmonaut set up and activated an experiment that observes the atmosphere at nighttime in near-ultraviolet wavelengths.

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