The crew of astronauts aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule docked at the International Space Station and completed a full day’s journey to rendezvous with the orbiting laboratory after lifting off from Florida early Thursday.
The capsule made first contact with the space station at 1:40 a.m. ET on Friday. The astronauts are scheduled to exit the capsule and join seven astronauts on the space station just before 3 a.m. ET.
The spacecraft was scheduled to dock with the ISS around 1:15 a.m. ET was delayed while the ground crew worked to fix a problem with a sensor in the capsule’s docking hardware that locks the vehicle in its port.
Engineers on the ground encountered the same problem in the early hours of Thursday, shortly after the Crew Dragon capsule reached orbit. The faulty sensor caused issues trying to lift the spacecraft’s nose cone, which protects the docking hardware during launch and is designed to open once it reaches space. However, the ground crew was able to fix the problem with the backup system.
The capsule had to maintain its position about 20 meters from the space station on Friday morning while engineers worked out a solution in real time.
