The Dragon X will be released from the International Space Station (ISS) Tuesday at 2:10 p.m. EST Coverage on NASA TV starts at 1:45 p.m. EST. (Access to the live stream below).
"The Expedition 42 crew closed the hatches to the Dragon commercial cargo craft today after loading it with critical gear and research. Dragon will be unberthed from the Harmony module then released from the grips of the Canadarm2 Tuesday afternoon. It will splashdown off the Pacific coast of Baja California for recovery by SpaceX engineers a couple of hours before sunset.
"Meanwhile, a trio of cosmonauts worked in the Russian segment of the International Space Station on their set of science investigations. They studied ways to locate punctures caused my micro-meteoroids on the Russian side of the station; they looked at the behavior of charged macroparticles inside a magnetic trap; they also explored crew training methods using interactive 3D manuals, or virtual manuals.
"Another resupply spacecraft is counting down to its undocking from the space station this weekend. Europe's Automated Transfer Vehicle-5 (ATV-5) is set to undock from the Zvezda service module Saturday for a fiery deorbit over the Pacific about two weeks later. Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti installed internal cameras inside the ATV-5 that will record its breakup during the reentry. Engineers will use this data to understand the mechanics of a deorbiting spacecraft."
Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream
Stick around after the unberthing of the Dragon and watch the live coverage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launch. Launch is scheduled for 6:05 p.m. EST and live coverage begins at 5 p.m. EST.
For more information on the Space X launch, click here.
