Space Station Crew Welcomes World’s First Commercial Cargo Craft

Aboard the International Space Station, Expedition 31 Flight Engineer Don Pettit of NASA, Flight Engineer Andre Kuipers of the European Space Agency and Flight Engineer Joe Acaba of NASA grappled and berthed the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft to the station’s Harmony module May 25, 2012, marking a milestone in spaceflight history. Dragon became the first commercially developed space vehicle to be launched to the station to join Russian, European and Japanese resupply craft that service the complex while restoring a U.S. capability to deliver cargo to the orbital laboratory.