US’ SpaceX launches Dragon spacecraft to ISS

By  Trend

The US’ SpaceX on Sunday successfully launched a Dragon spacecraft that is to deliver 2.5 tons of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS), TASS reported.

A Falcon 9 rocked with the cargo spacecraft was launched from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The launching pad had not been used in these purposes from 2011 when Shuttle spacecraft went out of use.

The Dragon was initially planned to be blasted off on Saturday but the launch was cancelled 13 seconds before the takeoff due to malfunctions in the upper stage engine steering hydraulic piston. After that, SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk said on his Twitter account other systems of the spacecraft were going all right and the launch had been postponed "to make sure that it isn't symptomatic of a more significant upstream root cause," he wrote.

In mid-January, SpaceX successfully orbited telecom satellites Iridium NEXT. It was the first SpaceX’s launch after an abortive Falcon 9 launch in September 2016.

SpaceX has made a number of successful launches of the Dragon spacecraft to the ISS.