SpaceX launches final station solar arrays aboard cargo Dragon

SpaceX launched an uncrewed Dragon toward the International Space Station on October 13, carrying more than 6,300 pounds of supplies, science and hardware, including the final pair of roll-out solar arrays. NASA reported liftoff at 6:33 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Spaceflight Now reported that the Falcon 9 first stage landed at Landing Zone 40 on its eighth flight. Dragon then separated from the upper stage to begin its journey to the station.

The two solar-array wings, built by Redwire, travelled in Dragon’s unpressurized trunk, Spaceflight Now reported. Redwire’s October 12 announcement identified them as the fourth and final pair for the station; six earlier wings are already deployed.

NASA plans to install the new arrays during spacewalks later this fall. The agency describes their installation as the final step in augmenting the station’s power supply for research, operations and its eventual controlled deorbit. Launching the hardware does not complete that installation.

The cargo also includes hardware for making artificial retinas in microgravity and growing three-dimensional heart-tissue models, NASA’s release states. Other experiments will investigate glass formation and brain organoids. These are research objectives; the launch announcement does not report results from the new experiments.

Dragon’s next scheduled step is autonomous docking at the space-facing port of the Harmony module at 11 a.m. EDT on October 15. NASA targets a mid-November departure, followed by a California-coast splashdown returning research and cargo to Earth.