This screen grab taken from the NASA live feed shows the International Space Station taken from the SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft before docking, on April 24. (Photo by - / NASA / AFP)
The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour has docked with the International Space Station (ISS) early Saturday, a livestream showed.
Soft capture — the first phase of docking — occurred at 5:08 am Eastern time (0908 GMT), 264 miles (424 kilometers) over the south Indian Ocean.
Hard capture, the second stage, occurred about 10 minutes later, when 12 hooks were securely attached between Endeavour and the ISS’s forward port.
“Hard capture complete, welcome Crew-2,” said US astronaut Shannon Walker, current commander of the ISS.
“Thanks Shannon, we’re glad to be here, we’ll see you all in a few minutes,” replied Endeavour’s commander, US astronaut Shane Kimbrough.
The vestibule between the capsule is now being pressurised so that the hatches of both Endeavour and the space station can be opened.
The hatches should be opened around 7:15 am (1115 GMT), with a welcoming ceremony to follow at 7:45 am.
The Crew-2 mission, which includes the first European, Thomas Pesquet of France, blasted off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida before dawn on Friday.
Endeavour is carrying the third crew sent to the ISS by SpaceX, as part of the company’s multibillion dollar contract with NASA.
It’s also Endeavour’s second trip to the ISS.
It first flew there on the Demo-2 mission in May 2020, which ended almost a decade of US reliance on Russia for rides to the ISS following the end of the Space Shuttle program.
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