NASA, SpaceX launch Dragon to the ISS on prolonged cargo, station boosting mission – Spaceflight Now

A Cargo Dragon spacecraft from SpaceX lifted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket within the early hours Sunday morning to start a day-long journey to the International Space Station. It carried with it greater than 5,000 kilos of cargo and science experiment provides for the astronauts onboard and a brand new propulsion package deal for orbit elevating maneuvers.

The launch marks SpaceX’s thirty third Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-33) mission to the orbiting outpost. Docking on the ahead port of the Harmony module is anticipated on Monday, Aug. 25, at 7:30 a.m. EDT (1130 UTC), marking the fiftieth Dragon automobile to achieve the ISS.

“These missions have flown well over 300,000 pounds of cargo and supplies to the orbiting lab and well over 1,000 science and research projects that are not only helping us to understand how to live and work effectively in space, …but also directly contributing to critical research that serves our lives here on Earth,” mentioned Sarah Walker, SpaceX’s director of Dragon Mission Management.

Packed aboard the Dragon was {hardware} to assist greater than 50 science experiments and expertise demonstrations, starting from 3D steel printing to learning bone loss.

The Cargo Dragon spacecraft, serial quantity C211, making its third journey to the ISS, will likely be onboard when NASA and it’s worldwide companions mark 25 years of steady human presence in low Earth orbit concerning the station.

“Over that 25 years, we’ve hosted more than 280 residents. We’ve enabled more than 4,000 different scientific experiments and technology demonstrations and that represents the work of over 5,000 researchers from over 110 countries around the world,” mentioned Heidi Parris, affiliate program scientist for NASA’s ISS Program Research Office.

While docked, Dragon will carry out a sequence of burns to assist the @Space_Station keep its present altitude, utilizing an impartial propellant system and two Draco engines within the spacecraft’s modified trunk pic.twitter.com/suIdBQivUr

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 24, 2025

C211 will stay docked to the house station for almost 5 months, marking SpaceX’s first, long-duration cargo mission. The important purpose for that is to all Dragon to carry out a number of orbital reboosts of the ISS to maintain it in its desired place.

That takes a few of the load off of the Russian Progress automobiles and the station’s thrusters as NASA, Roscosmos and the opposite worldwide companions work in direction of the eventual demise of the station round 2030.

“It’s been exciting for us to support this critical, new effort and it feels like we get to become an even more integrated part of the ISS operations ecosystem,” Walker mentioned.

SpaceX can be on contract with NASA to assemble the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, which is scheduled to be delivered between 2028 and 2029 to assist help with the ultimate levels of the station’s life.