SpaceX Has Docked: 'Looks Like We Caught a Dragon by the Tail'
It's official: The first private mission to the International Space Station is a success. The SpaceX Dragon capsule, which blasted off on the Spacex Falcon 9 rocket Tuesday, successfully docked with the space station at 9:56 a.m. EDT, when a robotic arm grabbed it and secured it. In classic quotable NASA fashion, astronaut Don Pettit said: "Looks like we caught a Dragon by the tail." The unmanned capsule delivered a half a ton of supplies to the station but more important was the symbolic achievement for a private company, California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corp., which was founded by former PayPal CEO Elon Musk. Spacex is one of several companies vying for contracts to resupply the space station and eventually bring astronauts to it, and as of now it's the only one to successfully carry out a mission. Check out NASA's live feed:
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Live video by Ustream
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And the video of the approach:
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Amazing.
