Image Gallery: Astronauts Capture a Dragon

By Nancy Atkinson - March 04, 2013 11:34 PM UTC | Space Exploration

Sunday was a big day in space, and astronaut Chris Hadfield captured the excitement in photos, and shared them via Twitter. "What a day!" Hadfield tweeted. "Reached & grabbed a Dragon, berthed her to Station & opened the hatch to find fresh fruit, notes from friends, and peanut butter."

SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft overcame a problem with its thrusters after reaching orbit on Friday, and on Sunday Dragon successfully approached the Station, where it was captured by Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford and crewmate Tom Marshburn using the station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm. Dragon was grappled at 5:31 a.m. EST, and was berthed to the Earth-facing port of the Harmony module at approximately 8:56 a.m. EST on March 3.

See more photos below. The image captions are Hadfield's Tweets.

In this video, Hadfield provides a tour of the Robotic Workstation where the crew commanded Canadarm2 to capture and dock the Dragon:

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com