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| A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a Dragon 2 spacecraft lifts off on pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center for a re-supply mission to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral, Fla., Thursday, June 3, 2021. (AP Photo/John Raoux) The Associated Press |
The 7,300-pound (3,300-kilogram) shipment — which also
includes fresh lemons, onions, avocados and cherry tomatoes for the station’s
seven astronauts — should arrive Saturday.
SpaceX’s Falcon rocket blasted into the hazy afternoon sky
from Kennedy Space Center. The first-stage booster was new for a change,
landing on an offshore platform several minutes after liftoff so it can be
recycled for a NASA astronaut flight this fall.
The Dragon cargo capsule — also brand new — is delivering
the first of three sets of high-tech solar panels designed to bolster the space
station’s aging power grid. Astronauts will conduct two spacewalks later this
month to help install the two roll-out panels alongside solar wings that have
been in continuous operation for 20 years.
More power will be needed to accommodate the growing number
of ticket-buying visitors, NASA’s space station program manager, Joel
Montalbano, said Wednesday.
The cargo includes samples of saliva and oral bacteria from
dental patients that will be treated with toothpaste and mouthwash in an
experiment aimed at keeping astronauts' teeth and gums healthy in space.
“There’s no guarantee that the Earth methods will work in
zero gravity,” researcher Jeffrey Ebersole of the University of Nevada Las
Vegas said in a statement.
Also headed to the orbiting lab: 20,000 tardigrades, better
known as water bears, and 128 bobtail squid, as well as chile pepper plants and
cotton seedlings.
Tardigrades can survive in drastic environments on Earth and
even in the vacuum of space. Launched frozen, these microscopic extremophiles
will be thawed and revived aboard the space station. By identifying the genes
behind the animals’ adaptability, scientists hope to better understand the
stresses on the human body during long space stays.
The baby bobtail squid are part of a study investigating the
relationship between beneficial bacteria and their animal hosts.
This is SpaceX’s 22nd station supply run for NASA. The space
agency turned to private companies to transport cargo and astronauts following
the shuttles’ retirement a decade ago. - AP