First Private Commercial Cargo Flight Launch in Oct

As the space shuttle Endeavour took final flight to its stationary spot, NASA signaled a significant departure in cargo delivery to the International Space Station by handing it over to a private contractor. The Endeavour played a major part in building the ISS. This also marks a new approach of docking the supply vessel to the ISS.

The target launch date for the first of 12 contracted cargo resupply flight to the ISS has been decided. Under the NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract, NASA managers, SpaceX officials and international partner representatives announced the launch date as Sunday Oct 7.

The status and confirmation of the Falcon 9 rocket and its Dragon cargo spacecraft SpaceX CRS-1 mission was given by the International Space Station Program managers.

The launch is scheduled from the Space Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 8.3 p.m. The launch of the Dragon spacecraft will be the first of 12 contracted flights by SpaceX to resupply the space station and marks the second trip by a Dragon to the station, following a successful demonstration mission in May.

According to the officials, the Dragon is filled with 1,000 pounds supplies which include critical materials to support the 166 investigations planned for the station's Expedition 33 crew. 

About 734 pounds of scientific materials, including results from human research, biotechnology, materials and educational experiments, as well as about 504 pounds of space station hardware will be returned by the dragon.

These materials will aid in carrying out experiments in plant cell biology, human biotechnology and various materials technology demonstrations, among others.

Expedition 33 Commander Sunita Williams of NASA and Aki Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will use a robot arm to grapple the Dragon following its rendezvous with the station on Wednesday, Oct. 10. They will attach the Dragon to the Earth-facing port of the station's Harmony module for a few weeks while crew members unload cargo and load experiment samples for return to Earth.

Dragon is scheduled to return in late October for a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of southern California.