New Delhi: California-based space firm SpaceX is all set to launch its next cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in December, and according to the media, it will employ a preflown Dragon capsule.
The Dragon cargo spacecraft, which was flown on SpaceX’s sixth commercial resupply mission to station for NASA, will launch the CRS-13 resupply mission flight on a Falcon 9 rocket.
With this launch, the Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida – which has been out of service since September 2016 when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded there during a routine prelaunch test – will also make a comeback, Space.com reported.
SpaceX has been making contracted ISS resupply runs for NASA using Dragon and the Falcon 9 for five years.
The upcoming launch will be the 13th such mission for the company.
The CRS-13 mission will carry a number of interesting payloads, including a NASA instrument designed to measure how much energy the sun delivers to Earth and a machine that will produce ZBLAN optical fiber on orbit, the report said.
The Dragon cargo spacecraft comes back to Earth for soft, parachute-aided ocean splashdowns.
With IANS inputs