A SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station at about 11 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Oct. 15, arriving at the space-facing port of the Harmony module with more than 6,300 pounds of cargo. Two kinds of payload define the load: roll-out solar arrays packed in the unpressurized trunk, and hardware for making artificial retinas in weightlessness. NASA+ coverage of the rendezvous and docking starts at 9:15 a.m. EDT.
The flight is SpaceX’s 35th commercial resupply mission for NASA, known as CRS-35. A Falcon 9 lifted it off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 6:35 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, Oct. 13.
Harmony port docking and the crew watching the approach
NASA’s station blog says flight engineers Anil Menon of NASA and Joshua Kutryk of the Canadian Space Agency will monitor Dragon’s automated approach and rendezvous. They joined NASA flight engineers Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney on Wednesday and spoke with mission controllers about cargo operations after the spacecraft arrives. NASA’s coverage is on NASA+, and the docking is scheduled rather than complete as of this writing, so the approach could still change.
After arrival, Space.com reports, Dragon should stay attached for about a month, then return to Earth with experiments and hardware and splash down under parachutes in the Pacific Ocean off California. The site notes that Dragon is the only operational freighter that can bring cargo back down: Russia’s Progress, Japan’s HTV-X and Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL are all expendable.
Solar arrays in the trunk for the final two spacewalks
The arrays are stowed in Dragon’s unpressurized trunk. Per the station blog, they will be installed and activated on the truss structure for power generation during upcoming spacewalks. NASA’s spacewalk advisory gives the dates: U.S. Spacewalk 100 on Thursday, Oct. 29 will install the seventh roll-out array on the 2A power channel, and U.S. Spacewalk 101 on Thursday, Nov. 5 will install the eighth and final one on the 3B channel, both by Menon and Kutryk.
NASA says the eight arrays together raise available power by up to 30%, taking generation capacity from 160 kilowatts to approximately 215 kilowatts. The agency will preview the two outings at a news conference at 2 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Oct. 20.
Artificial retinas, heart tissue and the research Dragon carries
The station blog links the shipment to two experiments: one on creating artificial retinas and one on growing heart tissues, both in weightlessness. The blog names no researchers or institutions. Space.com, citing NASA’s Oct. 7 launch preview, quotes NASA officials saying Dragon “will deliver hardware to manufacture artificial retinas in microgravity,” aimed at restoring vision on Earth, and describes 3D heart tissue models intended for large-scale drug testing on future missions.
The same preview lists materials for studying how a new type of glass forms in microgravity, and brain organoids that NASA says “could reveal treatment targets for neurodegenerative diseases,” naming Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis. Those two biomedical experiments are the ones the station blog singles out, but the preview shows the manifest is broader than the two lead items, with materials science and neuroscience riding alongside the cardiac and eye work.
Vision is also a subject for the crew themselves. All four astronauts had eye exams in the Harmony module using medical imaging gear, and doctors on the ground watched the retina, lens and cornea in real time. NASA says the results may improve understanding of how long-duration spaceflight affects vision and eye shape. The research thread therefore runs from hardware arriving on Dragon to measurements already taken aboard the station.
Robotics tests and crew chores before the capsule arrives
The days before docking were not idle. According to the station blog, Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina tested an exoskeleton suit for remotely controlling robots as part of the Teledroid experiment: the operator wears the suit, uses VR goggles and hand controls, and manipulates tools in a simulated space environment. The blog says the results may help crews prepare for remote robotics operations on future long-term exploration missions. Roscosmos flight engineer Sergey Teteryatnikov separately updated software on a laptop in the Zvezda module that controls the European robotic arm.
Housekeeping continued alongside the science. Menon moved student-controlled Earth observation hardware from the Destiny laboratory to the Columbus laboratory, Kutryk cleaned the inside of an EXPRESS rack in Columbus, and Delaney and Watkins prepared a spacesuit for return to Earth in the Quest airlock and stowed recharged lithium-ion batteries that power the suits.
Whether the docking goes to plan will be clear on NASA+ by late morning; until then, the 11 a.m. EDT target is the figure NASA has published, and the approach is automated, with the crew monitoring rather than steering. NASA’s advisory says the two astronauts now watching the approach, Menon and Kutryk, are the ones assigned to install the arrays in the weeks ahead.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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