A little while ago the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft blasted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in its CRS-17 (Cargo Resupply Service 17) mission, also referred to as SPX-17. After just over ten minutes it separated successfully from the rocket’s last stage and went en route. This is the 17th mission for the Dragon spacecraft to resupply the International Space Station with various cargoes and then return to Earth, again with various cargoes.

The Dragon spacecraft’s cargo is almost 2,500 kg (almost 5,500 lbs) between the pressurized and the non pressurized section. There are about 340 kg (about 750 lbs) of food and other supplies for the International Space Station crew but most of the cargo consists of instruments, hardware and various other materials needed to science experiments and research conducted aboard the Station.

Perhaps the most important scientific instrument on board the Dragon cargo spacecraft is the Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 (OCO-3). It aims to monitor the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and is a complement to the instrument on board the OCO-2 satellite, launched on July 2, 2014. In this case, spare parts available during the OCO-2 mission’s setup were used to assemble an instrument that instead of being launched on a satellite will be installed on the International Space Station’s Kibo module’s Exposed Facility Unit 3 (EFU3).

The International Space Station’s life support systems are always being updated when better solutions are developed. On board the Dragon cargo spacecraft there are over 70 components of what will be the new Water Stowage System (WSS), and hardware that will be part of the Intermodular Ventilation (IMV) human waste management system.

Communication systems are crucial in space missions as well and new equipment is also tested on the International Space Station. That’s the case of the Space Test Program-Houston (STP-H6), which will be used to test a new technology to generate modulated X-rays to provide more efficient communications to space probes or to hypersonic vehicles that may have problems communicating via radio.

The Dragon Spacecraft, which is the same that was already used in the CRS-12 mission started on August 14, 2017, is now en route to the International Space Station and everything proceeds normally. The first stage regularly landed on the “Of Course I Still Love You” drone ship. The arrival at the Station is scheduled for Monday: at about 11 UTC the Dragon is scheduled to be captured by the Station’s robotic arm.