- Published on
SpaceX launching 6,300 pounds of cargo to the ISS on Oct. 13: Watch it live
- Authors
- Name
- DeepHorus
SpaceX launching 6,300 pounds of cargo to the ISS on Oct. 13: Watch it live
SpaceX is poised to launch its latest robotic Dragon cargo capsule toward the International Space Station on Tuesday, Oct. 13, from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off at 6:33 a.m. EDT (1033 GMT), carrying 6,300 pounds (2,860 kilograms) of supplies for the orbiting laboratory. Live coverage will stream on Space.com courtesy of NASA, beginning at 6:15 a.m. EDT (1015 GMT).
The mission, designated CRS-35, is the 35th flight SpaceX has conducted under its Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA. SpaceX has flown Dragon cargo runs since 2012, and its reusable Falcon 9 rockets and recoverable capsules have turned resupply into a routine operation. NASA depends on a mix of commercial freighters to keep the station stocked with food, spare parts and experiments.
If launch proceeds on schedule, Dragon will arrive at the station on Thursday, Oct. 15, docking autonomously to the space-facing port of the Harmony module at around 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT). Arrival coverage will begin at 9:15 a.m. EDT (1315 GMT). The capsule will remain attached to the outpost for roughly one month before returning home.
The payload includes the final set of International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Arrays (iROSAs), which will further boost the lab's energy budget. NASA officials said the spacecraft will also deliver hardware to manufacture artificial retinas in microgravity and 3D heart tissue models to advance large-scale drug testing on future missions.
Additional experiments include materials to study how a new type of glass forms in microgravity and brain organoids that could reveal treatment targets for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis. NASA published its CRS-35 launch preview on Oct. 7.
Dragon is the only currently operational freighter capable of carrying cargo in the downward direction. The other three — Russia's Progress, Japan's HTV-X and Northrop Grumman's Cygnus XL — are expendable and burn up in Earth's atmosphere after their time at the station ends. That return capability allows scientists to recover experiments and hardware for detailed analysis on the ground.
After about a month docked to the ISS, Dragon will depart loaded with scientific experiments and equipment, splashing down under parachutes in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast. Recovery teams will retrieve the capsule and rush time-sensitive samples to laboratories.
The flight underscores the central role commercial partners now play in sustaining the space station. With the ISS slated for retirement around 2030, NASA is using these resupply missions to test technologies and procedures relevant to future deep-space exploration. A successful CRS-35 would keep that pipeline moving.
