SpaceX Launches 33rd Cargo Delivery Mission To The International Space Station

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SpaceX early Sunday launched its 33rd resupply mission to the International Space Station, sending up a Dragon capsule loaded with 2.5 tons of equipment and supplies along with an add-on thruster kit to help maintain the lab's altitude.

Perched atop a workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, commercial resupply mission 33 got underway with a sky-lighting launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 2:45 a.m. ET, climbing away on a northeasterly trajectory lined up with the space station's orbit.

Nine minutes and 45 seconds later, moments after the discarded first-stage booster safely landed on an offshore droneship, the Dragon was released from the rocket's second stage, kicking off a 29-hour rendezvous with the orbiting laboratory complex.

If all goes well, the cargo ship will move in for docking at the station's forward port at 7:30 a.m. Monday. On board: more than 2,400 pounds of crew supplies, nearly 1,000 pounds of science gear, 1,300 pounds of space station hardware, computer equipment and spacewalk gear.

The food includes the usual variety of fresh, asked-for items for the crew, including coffee, tea and more than 1,500 tortillas.

"We fly tortillas because ... other breads and things like that have too many crumbs and things of that nature (that float away in weightlessness), so you can't actually maintain it in orbit," said Bill Spetch, ISS operations and integration manager.

"Tortillas are a great substitute for that."

On a more significant note, Heidi Parris, associate program scientist for the space station, noted that NASA will mark 25 years of continuous human presence aboard the lab in November.

During that quarter century, she said, "we've hosted more than 280 residents, we've enabled more than 4,000 different ... scientific experiments and technology demonstrations (representing) the work of over 5,000 researchers from over 110 countries around the world."