NEW YORK, December 8. /TASS/. A SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft has approached the International Space Station and astronauts started an operation on capturing it with a robotic arm and docking it with the station, NASA reported on Sunday.

The operation began at 5.05 EST (13.05 Moscow Time). The effort is carried out by the European Space Agency astronaut Luca Parmitano and NASA astronaut Andrew Morgan. Another NASA astronaut Jessica Meir is controlling telemetry data.

According to the Mission Control Center in Houston, at around 8 a.m. EST (16.00 Moscow Time) the spacecraft would be linked up with a docking port on the station's Harmony module.

SpaceX Dragon was launched by Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral on December 5. The spacecraft will deliver to the ISS some 2.5 tonnes of cargo, including 998 kg for a series of 38 scientific experiments.

This is Dragon’s 19th flight to the ISS as part of NASA program of commercial cargo deliveries to the station.

There are currently two Russian cosmonauts on the ISS - Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Skripochka, three NASA astronauts - Christina Koch, Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir, and one astronaut from the European Space Agency - Luca Parmitano (Italy).