REPLAY: SpaceX Launches Dragon Cargo Mission to International Space Station

Dragon is in countdown. Falcon 9 is in startup. Dragon, SpaceX, go for launch. Good morning. Thank you for joining us for SpaceX and NASA's live coverage of the launch of the 35th Commercial Resupply Services Mission to the International Space Station. As you can see on your screen, Falcon 9 is standing ready on the pad at Space Launch Complex 40, just minutes away from liftoff at 6.33 a.m. Eastern Time from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Since 2012, Falcon 9 and Dragon have delivered critical supplies and science experiments that help the crew conduct important research in orbit. Today, we're carrying more than 6,000 pounds of cargo, food, equipment, and scientific investigations. I'm Ronnie Foreman, Director of the Rideshare Program here at SpaceX. Thanks for being with us for today's early morning launch. At just about T-minus 15 and a half minutes, the vehicle is currently on track for an on-time liftoff. Now, like every Dragon mission headed to the station, we're working with an instantaneous launch window this morning. So if we enter a hold, we would stand down and come back for our next opportunity, which is tomorrow, Wednesday, October 14th at 6:08 a.m. Eastern. That instantaneous launch window is because the International Space Station is moving at over 17,000 miles per hour in its orbit. To get Dragon on the most efficient path for rendezvous and docking, we need to lift off at the exact moment that the station's orbital plane lines up directly over our launch pad, which is, of course, Slick 40. That alignment only happens for a split second. So the good news is that we started loading propellants onto the rocket at T-minus 35 minutes, and we'll keep hearing updates from mission control as prop load progresses. While we continue working through the countdown, I'm going to hand it over to NASA's Joseph Zacchesky, who is joining us from Johnson Space Center in Houston, for more info on how the station crew is preparing for this delivery. Good morning, Joseph. How are things looking in Houston? Hello and good morning, Ronnie, and it's great to be back with you today. Great to see you and welcome inside the International Space Station Flight Control Room here at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. This is the heart of mission operations staffed 24/7 to ensure the health, safety, and success of the orbiting laboratory, and it's an especially dynamic and exciting environment during a launch like today's. Now, right now, our flight controllers, led by Flight Director Paul Kania and the Excelsior flight team, are monitoring all of the station's systems as we get ready to receive new hardware, cargo, and science. Now, as Ronnie mentioned, that is the destination for Dragon today as it makes its way to the International Space Station. Now, teams here in Houston are working hand-in-hand with our colleagues in Hawthorne, California, where you Ronnie and the launch team in Florida to keep every piece of this operation in sync. This kind of coordination across multiple locations, time zones, and expertise is what makes missions like this run so smoothly. Now, at this hour, all systems are looking good, and mission control here in Houston remains go for launch. The International Space Station is orbiting about 260 miles above the Earth, and at today's launch time, it'll be passing off the northwest coast of Cuba in the Gulf of Mexico the Expedition 75 crew including NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins Luke Delaney and Anil Menon all aboard the International Space Station are prepared for Dragon's arrival they've reviewed their checklists configured their equipment and are ready for what will be a full day on board as Dragon approaches for its docking which is currently targeted for Thursday morning now this mission is bringing up over 6,000 pounds of supplies essential hardware and research that will keep the crew busy and advance the science already underway on station. We'll be tracking everything closely as the countdown continues and this resupply mission gets moving along. But for now, I'll send it back to you, Ronnie and Hawthorne, for a closer look at the launch vehicle and the spacecraft supporting this 35th Commercial Resupply Services Mission. Back to you, Ronnie. Awesome. Thanks for that insight into the mission, Joseph. The Falcon 9 supporting today's mission is a two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by SpaceX for the reliable and safe transport of people and payloads into Earth orbit and beyond. Falcon 9 is also the world's first orbital-class reusable rocket. Of course, at the very top of Falcon 9 today is the Dragon spacecraft. Dragon has 16 Draco thrusters that can be used in space to help position the spacecraft and navigate it to its final destination, which of course is the International Space Station. Each of those Draco thrusters provides 90 pounds of force. Dragon is the first private spacecraft to take humans to the International Space Station. It's flown more than 300,000 pounds of cargo and more than 1,000 experiments to space to date. All in, Dragon has completed 57 missions, including 53 visits to the space station and 21 human spaceflight missions for 82 total crew members, representing 20 different countries. CRS-35 is the fourth flight for the Dragon spacecraft supporting this mission, which previously flew CRS-33, CRS-29, and CRS-26 to and from the International Space Station. Just underneath Dragon is our second stage, which is powered by a single Merlin vacuum, or MVAC, engine. With its extended nozzle and optimized design, the MVAC drives maximum performance, producing 220,000 pounds of thrust in the vacuum of space. Then below the second stage is the black carbon fiber interstage, and inside of that is where the MVAC engine is located. The largest portion of the rocket is the first stage, or the booster. The first stage supporting today's mission will be making its eighth trip to space, having previously launched KF-1, IMAP, NROL-77, GPS-39, CRS-34, NROL-95, and one Starlink mission. Now about two and a half minutes into flight, the first stage will separate to make its way back to Earth. Today, that booster is headed back to Landing Zone 40, which is just next to our launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. While our countdown continues, I'm going to toss it back over to Joseph in Houston. Joseph? Thank you very much, Ronnie. And as we approach 10 minutes left in today's countdown, one of the key contributors to today's mission is continuing a scientific discovery aboard the International Space Station, and it's enabled and continued by missions, of course, like today. Dragon, of course, as we mentioned earlier, is carrying over 6,000 pounds of cargo, including critical hardware and scientific research, and the science aboard Dragon represents months and, in some cases, years of preparation by dedicated scientists and engineers, and here are some of the key highlights of what's inside Dragon today. An important piece of hardware flying to station that we here at NASA have been talking about often over the last several months is the delivery of the final pair of International Space Station Rollout Solar Arrays, or iROSAs. These iROSAs will provide additional power to the station to support critical station operations, including its safe and controlled deorbit, and will be installed during future spacewalks. Now, on the research side, with LambdaVision 1, NASA will be testing how to manufacture artificial eye retinas in microgravity, building them one thin layer at a time. And these artificial retinas could help restore vision for patients with currently incurable retinal diseases here on Earth. And another key research investigation going up on this mission will be the Stellar Spheroids Experiment to study how microgravity affects the growth and function of 3D human heart tissue models. Results could help researchers develop realistic heart tissue models for disease research and support larger scale drug testing on future space missions. Another highlight on today's mission is the ELF Unconventional Glass 2, and that will study how glass is formed in microgravity. And now these unconventional glasses could offer higher strength, improved optical capabilities, and greater durability for spacecraft habitats and other exploration technologies. And the final experiment that we'll feature on today's broadcast is the MINDS experiment to study brain organoids to better understand inflammation linked to neurodegenerative diseases. And research can help identify new treatment targets for diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and multiple sclerosis. Now, in addition to this incredible research and hardware, this mission is also carrying several bulk overwrap bags, or we like to call them BOBS, delivering a mix of standard crew-specific, shelf-stable, and fresh food items to support crew health and morale on orbit. Now this includes fun things like pizza kits, hummus, candy, cookies and a tostada kit. The crew Expedition 75 aboard the International Space Station will also be celebrating the holiday season on orbit and they will have a holiday kit included and that will include lobster, crab, quail, roasted turkey, jelly, cranberry sauce and vegetables. And you can find out even more about this research and hardware flying to station at nasa.gov. Now checking back Back in on the countdown, approaching now seven minutes to go and an update on the fueling. The stage one RP-1 has already completed. Liquid oxygen on this first stage is just over 90% full. On the second stage, already that RP-1 is topped off at 100, and it continues to climb in terms of the liquid oxygen. So as we get closer to liftoff, let's check back in with our colleagues in Hawthorne and Ronnie. Thanks, Joseph. I'm personally really excited about a lot of the research on board this mission. So I'm excited for liftoff here, which is coming up in just over seven minutes. And right now, the propellant in our tanks is isolated from our engines. But at T-minus seven minutes, we'll open the engine pre-valves and start passing a trickle of liquid oxygen through the Merlin engine pumps, chilling the engines for the start sequence. We do that because the super chilled and densified liquid oxygen that we use is really, really cold. There it is right on schedule. so we use that process to bring the engine hardware down to a cooler temperature before flowing all of the locks and propellant into it during flight. Engine chill helps to prevent thermal shock and ensures nominal engine performance. As Joseph mentioned, we've already heard the confirmation that stage one RP1 load is completed, so coming up shortly, one of our next visual milestones toward liftoff is that the support structure next to the vehicle, known as the strong back or the transporter erector, you can see it on the left-hand side of Falcon 9 on your screen right now. Oh, there's confirmation for stage one RP1 load complete. So the TE is going to start to pull away from the rocket just a little bit at first, and then a lot more right when we lift off the pad. The TE rolls Falcon 9 out to the launch pad, raises it vertical, and stays connected through the final seconds of the launch countdown. First, we'll see those white clamp arms just beneath Dragon's trunk begin to open up from around the second stage. That's again one of those major visual cues that we'll get on our screen that we're approaching liftoff. That's what allows the Strongback to recline away from Falcon 9. We are expecting that here in just about a minute and a half. And in the meantime, we'll continue to listen into mission control for critical call-outs as we progress toward liftoff. So again, we are standing by to see those clamp arms open up around the top of Stage 2, just beneath Dragon's trunk. Those clamp arms are used to stabilize the second stage during fueling, which again is the process that we're in right now, and began at about T-35 minutes. Dragon is in terminal count and is on internal power. There's confirmation from mission control that Dragon... Tanks are pressing for the start of propellant load. That Dragon is on its internal power now, which basically means that it's controlling its own elements of the countdown in conjunction with our mission control team. And we are just about 20 seconds away from those clamp arms opening up. Once they're open, the rocket will be fully free at the top. And we should hear a confirmation from mission control... Strong back retract. Perfect, that we are pressurizing the tanks for a strong back retract. So you did hear that call out from mission control, and now we're looking for those clamp arms to open up just at the bottom of your screen, which again will allow Falcon 9 to stand fully free at the top, and for our strong back to recline just about two degrees. At liftoff, it'll kick back to a full 45 degrees as Falcon 9 clears the launch pad. We've got great visuals on that in our early morning light from the coast of Florida. also have good views of those umbilical connections between the strong back and dragon which as i mentioned are still supporting the vehicle during this part of terminal count as we wait for the strong back to fully recline the range also is green and ready to support today's launch but if for some reason we do not launch today we do have a backup opportunity tomorrow morning as we continue to watch that strong back continue to move away and right now we're getting closer and closer to having both the first and second stages completely fueled for today's liftoff. Now three minutes. Stage one load is complete and as you just heard right there the stage one liquid oxygen loading has been completed and the second stage just a few moments away from completing itself about 95 percent of the way and these tanks are also pressurized using helium and that helium is chilled too so it stays compatible with the cryogenic plumbing and we may hear these call outs that the engines are sufficiently chilled as we get a little closer to liftoff. But closing in on stage two, liquid oxygen now currently sitting at about 96, 97 now percent full. First and second stages are now fully loaded with over 1 million pounds of rocket-grade kerosene, fuel, and liquid oxygen. And in just about 15 seconds, we'll hear that gas closeouts have begun. And you heard just there that the Dragon is now in auto idle, putting the rocket in a state the flight computers can understand before it takes off. Ground gas. And that gas closeout refers to the venting and closing out of those gaseous systems, like topping off the tanks and sealing vents to maintain pressure. Now approaching one minute before liftoff. And you may have noticed some of those white clouds billowing off the side of the rocket, and that is from the liquid oxygen as it warms slightly and boils off. That gas is vented and condenses in the warm Florida air. Falcon 9 is in startup. At just under a minute to go, Falcon 9 is in startup mode. So at this point, the rocket's onboard flight computers have taken over the count. From here on out, the countdown is fully autonomous. Just, there is that exciting call out from our launch director that we are go for launch. So now just inside of T minus two seconds, the nine Merlin 1D engines on the Falcon 9 first stage will ignite. T minus 30 seconds. And now we're just waiting for liftoff. This is SpaceX's 35th commercial resupply services mission. It's on its way to the International Space Station. We're getting good confirmation from mission control that everything on board the engine looks good. So right now the rocket is pitching downrange, and all nine Merlin engines are continuing to perform well. In just a couple of seconds here, we'll begin throttling down those engines to prepare for... There's another call out that everything is looking good on the rocket, so nominal or normal, as we continue through our ascent here. As we continue on our ascent, we're going to throttle down the engines to prepare for max Q, which is the point of maximum aerodynamic pressure during ascent. There we heard the call out that Falcon 9 is moving faster than the speed of sound. We should have max Q here in just about a second. Max Q. And that's the confirmation that we have hit the point in our ascent where the combination of speed and air pressure has put the greatest stress on the rocket. So now coming up next are several major events that are all going to happen back to back. Main engine cutoff, stage separation, first stage flip, second engine start, and then boost back burn start. There's confirmation that we're chilling that MVME engine for that second engine start. Now, main engine cutoff is likely to be called out as MECO, and that's when all nine of the engines on the first stage will shut down. That'll be followed by stage separation, where the first and second stages are pushed apart. Then the first stage will flip around using some small thrusters on board so it can head back to Earth. And a few seconds after that, the second stage will ignite to continue pushing Dragon to orbit. After that, the first stage will perform its boost-back burn to steer itself back toward the landing site in Florida. We should hear all of that call-out here in just about five seconds. Of course, hoping these great views continue through all of those call-outs, too. Main engine cutoff. Separation confirmed. We are still standing by. Oh, we've got good visual confirmation there that it looks like our boost-back burn has started. So we did hear call-outs for all those key events. That was main engine cutoff, where we had a great view of the coast of Florida back behind us. Stage separation, stage one flip, second engine start, and then the start of the boostback burn. Now, coming up shortly, we should hear the call-out for completion of the boostback burn on the first stage. This burn helps to steer the booster back toward the landing site, which again is landing zone 40 today, and is the first of three burns our first stage will perform on its return to landing zone 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. We are expecting that in just about five seconds. You can continue to follow along with both parts of our vehicle here, the first stage and the second stage, which is still carrying Dragon, with the telemetry in the bottom corners of your screen. While we stand by for that confirmation, I'm going to toss it back to Joseph in Houston. Joseph? Thank you very much, Ronnie, and thank you to those that have joined us. As you're watching live coverage of NASA's SpaceX's 35th Commercial Resupply Services mission, On the right-hand side, you can see that single Merlin vacuum engine continuing to propel the Dragon cargo spacecraft into orbit. And on the left-hand side, that is that Stage 1 booster making its way back to Earth. Now, next up is going to be the entry burn, where three of those nine Merlin engines will reignite, and this will help slow down that stage on the left-hand side as it reenters the upper part of Earth's atmosphere. And following the entry burn, the booster will go through its landing burn, And this is a single-engine burn that brings its vehicle speed down rapidly in order to land back off the coast of Florida. We should be hearing those call-outs here in just a few moments. As, again, the Stage 1 booster making its return back to landing zone 40 on the left-hand side. And that single Merlin vacuum engine continuing to propel Dragon into orbit. Now four minutes and change going into today's launch. It's about an eight-and-a-half-minute ride to get into orbit. so still some time left on powered flight as we continue to await the arrival of Stage 1 and Stage 2 and Dragon continuing to make its way into microgravity. So we are still standing by for that entry burn. And during the entry burn, Falcon 9 is decelerating, like Joseph mentioned, by firing its Merlin engines, but the vehicle is still moving really fast. That's going to cause it to fly through Merlin's exhaust gases, which is also known as the rocket's plume, which then in turn deposits a layer of soot on the vehicle surface which is why our flight proven vehicles look the way that they do the soot comes from the carbon-based fuel that Falcon 9 uses and with each flight the soot builds up a little more on the outside of the vehicle so we are standing by for the beginning of the entry burn but right now as Joseph mentioned on the left hand side of the screen that first stage is coming back to the coast of Florida with one of the best shots I think we've had of the nighttime uh the nighttime coast in Florida on a webcast in kind of a while It looks great. Fantastic views, Ronnie. And you can see great shots of those grid fins as well. Falcon 9 equipped with those four hypersonic grid fins, which are positioned near the top of the first stage. It allows for its steering as it returns to Earth. And these aerodynamic control surfaces for the first stage continuing reentry and ascent. As you can see, that beautiful Florida coastline, the nighttime lights of the Florida coast as stage two, as well as the Dragon Cargo spacecraft. For NASA, SpaceX's 35th Commercial Resupply Services mission continues to propel into orbit on the right-hand side. Still about two minutes left of powered flight. Stage 1 FTS is saved. Good confirmation from Mission Control that our flight termination system is saved. So now we are standing by for our landing burn, which we're expecting just about any second here. You can always follow along with our mission critical events in the timeline in the bottom of your screen. The landing burn is going to be our final burn of the Falcon 9 booster and used to reduce the remaining speed of the vehicle for a gentle and precise landing. A great visual confirmation there of landing burn start as we approach landing zone 40. And there you have another successful landing of our Falcon 9 rocket. Again, the eighth launch and landing for that particular first stage. Now coming up at about the eight and a half minute mark, we should hear a call up for second engine cutoff one or SECO 1 when the MVAC engine on your screen right now will shut down. That will conclude the roughly six-minute burn by this engine needed to get Dragon to the proper orbit to align with the International Space Station. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, you can always continue to follow along with vehicle telemetry, right now tracking Stage 2 still up in space and Stage 1 having successfully landed at LZ-40. Stage 2 FDS is safe. Stage 2 terminal guidance shut down. And with confirmation of SECO-1 on the second stage, we're just standing by for confirmation of a good orbit. And with that, we have confirmation of a good orbit from Mission Control as the Stage 2 vehicle now coasting with Dragon attached. And we're a moment away from spacecraft separation as we continue to see that Merlin vacuum engine with the Earth below being illuminated by the early morning light. Now over nine minutes into today's mission. Again, an on-time liftoff of 6.33 a.m. Eastern time from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for NASA's SpaceX's 35th commercial resupply services mission, carrying over 6,300 pounds of key cargo, hardware, and supplies. So now we are standing by. We just heard the call out from Mission Control that Dragon separation has been confirmed. So we're standing by for views, hopefully, of the spacecraft moving away from our second stage. But Dragon is now on its way for approximately 52 and a half hours, making its way to the International Space Station. So as Joseph just mentioned, we had an on-time liftoff today at 6.33 a.m. Eastern Time, and everything has proceeded nominally up to this point. At about two and a half minutes into flight, we saw separation of the first and second stages. That was followed by the successful landing of Falcon 9's first stage at Landing Zone 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This was the eighth launch and landing for this booster. At about T plus eight and a half minutes, we had a successful second engine cutoff or SECO one that was followed by confirmation of good orbital insertion, which we are now getting spectacular views of up in space on your screen. Dragon has successfully separated from the second stage and we are waiting for a nose cone deployment. While we stand by for that, I'm going to hand it back to Joseph at JSC to talk through that milestone. Joseph, tell us more about that. Thank you very much, Ronnie. And again, great to work with you and the teams at SpaceX says Dragon now in a good orbit and we continue to stand by for the deployment of the nose cone which is at the tip of the Dragon spacecraft and it'll hinge open as the hooks that are holding that nose cone down are currently being released to allow for that to occur and once it is deployed it'll expose the four forward bulkhead Dracos these Draco thrusters will execute a series of maneuvers necessary to raise its orbit and meet up with the International Space Station. Immediately after Dragon separates from Falcon 9, it begins what we call the activation and rendezvous phase of the mission. And during this phase, Dragon is configured for on-orbit operations. It begins after separation from Dragon from the Falcon 9, which we just saw a few moments ago, and ends with the completion of the final co-elliptic burn. That is one of five burns that the spacecraft will perform to climb up and catch up to the International Space Station. Now, our initial orbit today is about 190 kilometers by 210 kilometers, and with those numbers representing the perigee and apogee of the orbit, or the lowest and highest points over the Earth. And that means the orbit isn't a perfect circle, but more like a very slight ellipse. With docking targeted for Thursday morning, over the next day, and Ronnie mentioned the amount of hours necessary for the spacecraft to catch up to the International Space Station, Dragon will execute a series of burns, which will gradually raise its orbit to align more closely with the station. And I mentioned earlier that there are five major burns or firings of the Draco thrusters that Dragon will be performing to close the gap with the orbiting laboratory before we begin final approach and maneuvers. Those burns are the phase burn, boost burn, close burn, transfer burn, and co-elliptic burn that we mentioned earlier. And that's all again for Dragon to climb up and catch up to the International Space Station. Now we are standing by for nose cone deployment as the hooks opening up previously. And we will start to see that nose cone. Hopefully we'll get some great views. But as we welcome you back inside, our mission control teams on the right-hand side, they are with me here at the International Space Station flight control room at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, working hand-in-hand with the team on the left-hand side. That is SpaceX Mission Control in Hawthorne, California, monitoring Dragon's operations throughout the flight. Now over 13 minutes into today's mission. And again, the targeted docking time will be Thursday morning with NASA Plus start time around 9:15 a.m. Eastern time for a docking expected around 11 a.m. Eastern time. So that methodical burn approach for the spacecraft to catch up to the International Space Station. Now, joint operations between these two teams you'll see here will come as we get a little closer to when Dragon is in its final approach phase, just about two hours or so prior to docking. Again, that docking time expected around 11 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday, October 15th, and we'll have our coverage starting at 9.15 a.m. Eastern time. Now, teams here continuing to await the movement and deployment of the nose cone of Dragon. And then following Nosecone Deploy, I'll be joined by a special guest here on console. As we welcome, we will welcome in the Operations Integration Manager for the Low Earth Orbit Program, G. Patel, to talk about some of the key hardware and highlights of today's mission making its way to the International Space Station. And we just received confirmation that the Nosecone is now traveling and beginning to make its way open. Nosecone held to the spacecraft with 12 hooks that have been since released. and we'll continue to monitor and here we see from inside the nose cone and once it opens up a little bit further you'll see the vacuum of space in front of it now 15 minutes into today's flight and again thank you all for following along as we await this nose cone deploy NASA's SpaceX 35th commercial resupply services mission is well on its way to the orbiting laboratory that is the International Space Station after an on-time liftoff of 6:33 a.m. Eastern time carrying over 6,000 pounds of science, crucial hardware, and supplies to Expedition 75. Nosecone is approximately about 33% open as we continue to monitor along with the progress. Now aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins, Luke Delaney, and Anil Menon, along with Canadian Space Agency, or CSA, astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Tetryanikov, and Pyotr Dubrov, and Anna Kikina, all awaiting today's key cargo resupply services mission. And Dubrov, the current commander of the International Space Station, there you see him seated in the front of this Expedition 75 portrait. Now on tap for monitoring Dragon's approach upon docking on Thursday will be Anil Menon alongside with Joshua Kucharczuk. Kucharczuk just arrived a little more than 11 days ago as a member of NASA's Crew 13. And as for Anil Menon, he would arrive on a Soyuz spacecraft now over 90 days into his mission. Nosecone now a little bit more than halfway open as we continue to monitor along. And again, we'll be joined on console by the Operations and Integration Manager for the Low Earth Orbit Program and G. Patel here momentarily. We mentioned both Menon and Kucharczuk will be on tap for monitoring at Dragon's approach. And once it's docked, it will begin to unpack that more than 6,300 pounds of supplies and cargo. And a key component of today's mission as well is the delivery of the final two International Space Station rollout solar arrays or IROSAs. And those will be installed on a future spacewalk. Nose cone approaching about 90% open. And we will stand by for confirmation here shortly. And as we wait that confirmation, again, Dragon will begin that methodical approach to the International Space Station with five key burns that it will need to execute over the next day or so. As we get great visuals from the Dragon spacecraft of Earth, now 18 minutes into today's mission. And we have just received confirmation that the nose cone is now open and Dragon is ready for its phasing burns to the International Space Station. Again, using those four forward bulkhead Dracos in order to catch up to the orbiting laboratory. With a successful orbital insertion and the Dragon well on its way, I'm now thrilled to be welcomed on console here in Mission Control by the Operations Integrations Manager for the Low Earth Orbit Program and G. Patel. G., wonderful to see you. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, Joseph. Glad to be with you. This mission, and we've mentioned it a couple times throughout the broadcast, is delivering the final pair of International Space Station rollout solar arrays, or IROSAs, and that will complete the augmentation of the station's power systems. Can you share more about how these new arrays will impact station operations and what this milestone means for the future of the International Space Station and its power management? Well, we're really excited to have these final two arrays launched. It will mark the culmination of a multi-year effort to augment ISS's power generation capability. as each new array will bring up to 20 kilowatts of power, which is about a 30% increase in power generation. From an operational standpoint, what does that mean? That just gives the laboratory more flexibility and margin as we are trying to enable more science on board and research, enabling commercialization and technology demonstrations. So also another key benefit is when we get into some of these dynamic operations, You know, station has to hold fixed positions, which may not be ideal for power, depending on the orientation of the sun and which way the arrays are facing. You know, sometimes we have to power down low priority systems in these situations. Well, these arrays are going to actually minimize impacts of those situations. So also one of the key benefits of the power enhancement is going to be for de-orbit So whenever we get ready for safe de-orbit of ISS, we need to ensure that our critical systems are going to have the power that's needed to safely de-orbit. It's going to be a very complex operation. And so really looking forward to getting these final two arrays installed. And as you can see, they're going to have broad-reaching impacts to ISS. And again, those International Space Station rollout solar arrays or iROSAs, those will be installed on future spacewalks coming soon. And with that, over the past few years, a lot of astronauts have already completed a series of spacewalks to prepare the station for these new rollout solar arrays, including what we saw recently over the last couple months in the installation of the 2A and 3B modification kits to set the stage for this final pair of iROSAs. Now, can you walk us through a little bit of how that sustained spacewalking effort paved the way for completing the power system upgrade, certainly, and what it says about the complexity and the long-term planning needed to get behind the station enhancements. Well, it's been quite the journey. Folks may remember back in 2017 is when we launched the ROSA on CRS-11, and that's really where we demonstrated this new innovative approach to deploying a solar array. You know, with that, once we were able to prove that technology, we were trying to understand how can we leverage this for ISS and apply that. The legacy arrays are not outfitted to have standard upgrades, and so teams had to go look at ways we can attach these arrays. And, you know, there were nonstandard interfaces where we had to put these modification kits to safely mount these arrays. And so the teams designed and developed hardware to be able to attach to the legacy array platforms, and and that's the foundation of how we're structurally mounting these arrays in addition we're building power harnesses that allow us to connect into the existing power architecture so these arrays can seamlessly feed in power so really a complex effort you know it takes time for us to to design and develop the hardware to launch it as you saw great views of the trunk you know working with SpaceX to be able to to launch the platforms in the trunk the arrays in the trunk, you know, just bringing all that together, training the astronauts to execute the EVAs needed to install that. So, you know, it's been a long journey. We've got six of the eight arrays installed and looking forward to just getting these last two on. It's been remarkable to see what's been accomplished in this short window of time. And again, some of those spacewalks happened just a couple of months ago to prepare for the installation of these last two International Space Station rollout solar arrays. Well, G, also on this mission, they're also carrying a remarkable suite of science that we featured earlier in the broadcast as well, from artificial retinas with Lambda Vision 1 to heart cell studies and stellar spheroids and investigations into new types of glass and neurodegenerative diseases. How do experiments like these not only improve life here on Earth, but also demonstrate why the International Space Station and low Earth orbit remain such a critical proving ground for research, technology, and hardware, as we've talked about, and the systems will need for future deep space deep space exploration well the International Space Station is a unique laboratory it offers the microgravity environment that allows us to study biological physical material sciences that simply aren't possible on earth and and this is what helps us lead to discoveries that can benefit people back on earth and in addition it helps us enhance future exploration programs um just for example human research right as as the human body is undergoing adaptation into space um you know we we see bone loss muscle degradation loss of vision and we develop countermeasures but understanding those core aspects of what's driving that and coming up with countermeasures have direct benefit back on earth um so it really is amazing to be able to understand the science that's happening on all aspects of these areas. And beyond human health, you know, just looking at our ECLSS systems, ECLSS environmental life support systems, we're trying to develop closed-loop systems, right? Going to Mars, you know, we need to be able to be as closed-loop as possible. Well, over the years on Space Station, we've been able to achieve 98% water recovery rates, which is huge because that means you don't have to launch the water, right, to these long-distance destinations. And so using the platform as a testbed to continue to iterate and evolve will help all of these future platforms with the technologies we've developed on space station. So really broad-reaching impacts, you know, and doing technology demonstrations, robotics, you know, there's all aspects. of research that are happening on space station and g one more before i let you go it's been an incredibly busy stretch for the international space station what time is it i feel like every time we catch up it's it's like that but we just saw Crew-13 arrive not too long ago back on October 1st, Crew-12 just returned to Earth this past week and now the mission of critical hardware and science with CRS-35 and NASA SpaceX's 35th Commercial Resupply Services mission well on its way for docking on Thursday morning, and then we previewed what's to come with upcoming spacewalks for these iROSs. From an operations standpoint, how does your team continue to manage this tempo and support both a mission like today, but also future exploration goals? Well, after 26 years of continuous human presence on board ISS, our teams have developed the skills and refined and honed the processes needed to safely manage and execute these high demand periods. So it starts with a great team. We look at these periods months in advance, and we actually start laying in what our primary mission objectives are. And so for CRS-35, we have a great science plan. There's a lot of time-critical operations. We make sure we can protect those and lay those into the timeline. In addition, we've got to do two spacewalks to get the iROSs installed. That requires preparing your spacesuits to be ready to go out. Also the robotics choreography that have to go jointly with that. And then, you know, we're delivering a bunch of cargo that needs to get offloaded and we need to pack the stuff that needs to return home. And so we really work months in advance to ensure that we've got a good plan and that there's a margin where, you know, things sometimes break and we have to go address that. And so we try to bake in a little bit of margin where the teams can respond and react accordingly. So really just a great team that works to ensure that we have successful plans that we can execute. G. Patel, Operations Integrations Manager for Low Earth Orbit Program. Thank you so much for your time and joining us on the broadcast. Thank you, Joseph. It was great to be with you. And with that, let's check back in with Ronnie and the team over in SpaceX. Awesome. Thanks so much for that great interview, Joseph. I said it earlier in the webcast, but I'll say it again, the microgravity research going on on station that you guys just spoke about is so exciting. And Dragon is now on its way toward the International Space Station to deliver some of those exciting new experiments. We'll next execute a series of phasing burns to gradually close the distance between the spacecraft and the station. Docking is targeted for Thursday morning, October 15th at 11 a.m. Eastern, 10 a.m. Central. We'd like to thank NASA for entrusting us with today's mission. SpaceX is honored to be part of NASA's Commercial Resupply Services Initiative. Congratulations again to the teams on another successful launch. To stay up to date with all our upcoming missions, be sure to check out SpaceX.com/launches for schedules and follow at SpaceX on X. That will do it for me here at SpaceX, so thank you all for tuning in, and back to you, Joseph. Thank you very much, Ronnie, and as always, it's a pleasure to work with you and the team at SpaceX and share this launch with you once again. Join us on NASA Plus and for more for our coverage of the final approach and docking of this spacecraft beginning at 9.15 a.m. Eastern on again Thursday, October 15th, as Ronnie mentioned, for a docking expected at near 11 a.m. Eastern. Visit nasa.gov for the latest updates on our coverage and expected docking time as we follow the operations throughout the next couple days. With Dragon safely on its way to the International Space Station, that'll wrap up our joint coverage of NASA and SpaceX's 35th Commercial Resupply Services launch. thank you for joining us and we hope to see you again on thursday morning for docking until next time this is mission control houston