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SpaceX Nasa Mission: Astronaut capsule set to dock with space station
May 31, 2020
US astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken will dock to the International Space Station (ISS) later.
The men are making their way up to the orbiting platform after their launch on a Falcon-9 rocket from Florida's Kennedy Space Center on Saturday.
The Nasa crew are now travelling in a Dragon capsule supplied and operated by the private company SpaceX - a first in the history of human spaceflight.
Their ship is due to attach to the ISS at around 14:30 GMT (15:30 BST).
It will be a fully automated procedure; Hurley and Behnken won't need to intervene unless there is a problem.
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The vessel will come up under the station and manoeuvre itself to a docking port on the bow section.
Once hooks have sealed the Dragon in place and pressure checks are completed, the astronauts will be able to disembark and join the Russian-American crew already onboard the ISS.
Hurley and Behnken were given a good period of sleeptime to prepare them for Sunday's activities.
But before signing off, they carried out what has become a tradition among US spacefarers - the naming of their ship. This tradition goes right back to the Mercury capsule programme in the early 1960s.
The two men said their Dragon would be called "Capsule Endeavour".
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