Ants and another robotic arm are on their way to the International Space Station thanks to SpaceX

Elon Musk, who took to Twitter a few days ago to complain about all the lawsuits that his “SpaceX” co-star of retired Amazon is filing for Jeff Bezos, has something to celebrate. The launch of SpaceX’s new dragon went well this morning. Writes a lot of ants and robot arm AP.

International Space Station

It is a special shopping list received by SpaceX for the International Space Station (ISS). The Dragon capsule contains merchandise from all kinds of different organizations. For example, the Girl Scouts of America (known as cookies) supplied live ants that astronauts could conduct research on the space station.

Another interesting object that is part of the International Space Station mission is the robotic arm. The last was all Dutch robotic arm Sent to the space station (and installed safe and sound after an interesting installation issue). This time it is a robot arm of Japanese origin, made by the technology company GITAI.

robotic arm

The purpose of the robotic arm is to assist the International Space Station crew with basic daily tasks, such as tightening screws. This is not only good for astronauts, but also for GITAI, which wants to test whether it can also make robotic arms to fix satellites in space.

The Dragon was launched from the Kennedy Space Center on a recycled Falcon 9 rocket. A day later than planned, due to the weather (which obviously didn’t just throw a wrench in the works at the Belgian Formula 1 race). In addition to the robotic arm and ants, the Dragon takes seeds and plants, as well as food for the crew of the International Space Station.

SpaceX and NASA

It is the 23rd time that SpaceX has made a flight for NASA. The two companies have been working together since 2011 to bring crew members and supplies to the space station. The “order” should arrive at the International Space Station on Monday. In total, there are 2,170 kilograms of cargo on board.

We are particularly interested in SpaceX’s other project, his project Starship. This is the largest and most powerful space rocket ever. Later this year it will be doing a test flight, but when, how and what is still unknown.