NEW YORK, April 21. /TASS/. Space X has launched a carrier rocket with the Cargo Dragon spacecraft in order to replenish supplies at the International Space Station (ISS), the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said.
Within the framework of the 32nd commercial resupply services mission for NASA, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 4:16 a.m. EDT (8:16 a.m. GMT).
The flight to the ISS is expected to take about 28 hours. The docking with the orbiting outpost is scheduled for April 22. The spacecraft is delivering food, supplies and equipment, as well as an enhanced air quality monitoring system and two atomic clocks to examine fundamental physics concepts, such as the theory of relativity.
Besides Cargo Dragon, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus ships deliver cargoes to the station from the US side. However, when returning to Earth, they burn up in the dense layers of the atmosphere along with the garbage they take from the ISS.