NASA / SpaceX
SpaceX's Dragon is seen approaching the International Space Station during a resupply flight in October 2012. The next Dragon rendezvous is scheduled for Sunday.
By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News
One day after a thruster-system glitch caused a holdup in a commercial cargo capsule's scheduled rendezvous with the International Space Station, NASA and the SpaceX rocket venture said they were ready for an orbital hookup on Sunday.
NASA and the SpaceX rocket venture said the maneuvers for the rendezvous would begin overnight, setting up SpaceX's unmanned Dragon cargo ship to be grappled with the space station's robotic arm at 6:31 a.m. ET Sunday. It would take at least an hour more for the Dragon to be brought in for its berthing at the station's Harmony module, SpaceX said.
NASA TV's live video coverage?of the rendezvous is set to start at 3:30 a.m. ET.
The Dragon was launched on Friday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to begin its space station cargo run, but minutes after reaching orbit, SpaceX's controllers in California noticed that only one of the craft's four thruster pods was working. The thrusters control the Dragon's position in space, and at least three of the pods had to be operational to get NASA's clearance for the berthing.
It took several hours to resolve the glitch and get full thruster functionality. That caused SpaceX to miss its opportunity for a Saturday rendezvous. SpaceX's billionaire founder, Elon Musk, said it looked as if there was a stuck valve or a blockage in the thruster's oxidizer lines. Recycling the valves and sending a blast of pressurized helium through the line cleared the system, he said.
Since then, the Dragon has successfully conducted a series of orbital maneuvers, and that gave NASA and SpaceX the confidence to go ahead with the hookup. "The station?s Mission Management Team unanimously agreed that Dragon?s propulsion system is operating normally along with its other systems and ready to support the rendezvous," NASA said in a statement Saturday.
NASA said SpaceX voiced "high confidence there will be no repeat of the thruster problem during rendezvous, including its capability to perform an abort, should that be required."
The Dragon is carrying more than 2,300 pounds (1,050 kilograms) of cargo, including experiments to study the growth of plants and mouse stem cells in zero-G. There are also spare parts for the station's air-recycling system, and?a research freezer for preserving biological samples. The crew will be getting clothing, personal items and food, reportedly including some fresh fruit from an orchard owned by the father of one of SpaceX's employees. The Dragon also is bringing?the first copy of "Up in the Air," a single recorded by the band Thirty Seconds to Mars. That song will figure in a public-relations push later this month.
Once the space station's astronauts unload all that cargo, they'll fill the Dragon back up with more than 3,000 pounds (1,370 kilograms) of stuff destined for return to Earth. NASA said that if the berthing proceeds as currently scheduled, there'll be no change in the plan for setting the Dragon loose on March 25 for its splashdown in the Pacific.
This is the second of 12 resupply flights to be conducted under NASA's $1.6 billion contract with SpaceX. The first flight took place last October. SpaceX and another company, Orbital Sciences Corp., were granted the contracts to help fill the gap left by the space shuttle fleet's retirement in 2011. Orbital's cargo delivery service is expected to start later this year.
Update for 10:50 p.m. ET March 2: The times for the grapple operation and the start of NASA TV's coverage have shifted a half-hour later, so I've updated this item to reflect that change.
More about SpaceX:
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the?Cosmic Log?community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space,?sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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