The cargo dragon opens wide as it approaches the International Space Station

After the cancellation of the space shuttle program more than a decade ago, the United States was left without a vehicle to take its astronauts to the International Space Station and had to turn to old friends Russia for help. It was a difficult decade, during which the American public lost interest in space research.

See Inspiration 4 from the Crew Dragon
Arrived at the scene of SpaceX to change things around. Over the course of ten years, the United States remained without a spacecraft, Elon Musk’s company worked hard, and finally the Crew Dragon, a spacecraft, is more likely to be successful than the amazing shuttle.

Since it entered the scene in less than a year, Crew Dragon has taken people to the ISS three times. First, it did so in May 2020, when the first crew test flight took place, and more recently in April this year. Another flight, Crew-3, will take place later in October.

To be so successful, the crew dragon overshadowed the cargo dragon on the previous spacecraft. In short, the lifeline with Earth for astronauts on the space station, the cargo version of the ship has been in orbit for the first time since 2010 and the first payload of supplies delivered to the station in 2012. Doing so since, launched less than 23 times, failed only once.

The main photo of this piece shows a cargo dragon returning to the ISS at the end of August. The ship’s cap is out of the way, revealing the docking port with the station’s Harmony module and its forward international docking adapter.

The ship was part of the 23rd Commercial Reproduction Dragon Expedition, which landed a few days earlier after a short stop in its orbit and was docked at an altitude of 260 miles (418 km) off Western Australia. The ship had various experiments, supplies and even small robotic arms.