Astronauts relocate SpaceX Dragon capsule on space station

Astronauts safely flew the SpaceX Dragon capsule Endeavour to a new port on the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday morning (May 6).

Endeavour, which carried the four astronauts of SpaceX's Crew-6 mission to the ISS in early March, undocked from the Harmony module's space-facing port at 7:10 a.m. (1110 GMT) on Saturday and redocked to the module's forward-facing port at 8:01 a.m. EDT (1201 GMT).

Both the International Space Station account and SpaceX confirmed the successful docking on Twitter. "The @SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour redocked to its new port and completed its relocation maneuver at 8:01am ET today," the space station's official Twitter account wrote.

Related: International Space Station — Everything you need to know

a spacex crew dragon capsule maneuvers to relocate at the international space station

(Image credit: NASA TV)
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All four Crew-6 astronauts — NASA's Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, the United Arab Emirates' Sultan Al Neyadi and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev — were  aboard Endeavour during Saturday's move. 

Bowen and Hoburg served as commander and pilot, respectively. Al Neyadi and Fedyaev played supporting roles during the relocation, which made room for another Dragon at the ISS.

"Endeavour's relocation will open up Harmony's top port for the upcoming SpaceX CRS-28 cargo mission," NASA officials wrote in an update on Friday (May 5), referring to a robotic resupply flight scheduled to launch in early June. 

"This enables the Canadarm2 robotic arm to reach out and access the cargo inside the SpaceX Dragon resupply ship's trunk," they added.

That cargo includes a set of ISS roll-out solar arrays, known as iROSAs, which are designed to augment the orbiting lab's power supply.

Spacewalking astronauts have installed four of six planned iROSAs on the exterior of the ISS to date. When all six are up and running, ISS astronauts will have 20% to 30% more juice to work with with than they did before, NASA officials have said.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us @Spacedotcom, or on Facebook and Instagram. 

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Mike Wall
Senior Space Writer

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.

  • Homer10
    Why do all 4 astronauts have to get into the Dragon capsule to relocate it? Couldn't one astronaut handle the re-parking of the dragon?
    Reply
  • Jasseji
    Homer10 said:
    Why do all 4 astronauts have to get into the Dragon capsule to relocate it? Couldn't one astronaut handle the re-parking of the dragon?
    For safety reasons, if something would t work during the redocking, they would otherwise be left without an escape capsule. This way if something glitches they can Just return to earth
    Reply