SpaceX on verge of a supply run

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The International Space Station is about to receive another commercial shipment.

The California company known as SpaceX is set to launch its unmanned Falcon rocket this morning, hoisting a Dragon capsule containing more than a ton of food, tools, computer hardware and science experiments.

There won't be any ice cream, though, for the six-man station crew. Freezers going up are filled with mouse stem cells, protein crystals and other research items. On the previous Dragon delivery in October, chocolate-vanilla swirl was tucked inside.

Forecasters put the odds of good weather at 80 percent for the midmorning launch.

This will be the third space station visit for SpaceX, or more formally Space Exploration Technologies Corp., the creation of Elon Musk of PayPal and Tesla electric carmaker fame.

NASA is paying the company to supply the orbiting lab; the contract is worth $1.6 billion for 12 delivery runs.

If launched Friday, the Dragon should arrive at the space station on Saturday morning. Astronauts will use the station's robot arm to grab the Dragon and attach it to the orbiting complex.

A variety of plant life is going up, including 640 seeds of mouse-ear cress, a small flowering weed used in research. Other experiments involve paint; high school students want to see how it will adhere and dry in space.

Russia, Europe and Japan also provide delivery services to the space station, but none of those cargo craft can return goods like the SpaceX Dragon. This latest Dragon will spend more than three weeks at the space station before departing and parachuting into the Pacific with a full load of medical specimens, fish, plants and old equipment.

NASA's shuttles used to be the main haulers up and down, but retired two years ago.

SpaceX, based in Hawthorne, Calif., is working to modify its Dragon capsules to transport astronauts to the station in another few years. A handful of U.S. companies are vying for the job.

Until then, NASA is buying seats for its astronauts on Russian Soyuz rockets to get to the station.

As is his custom, Musk will monitor the launch from SpaceX Mission Control in California.

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Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission--pages/station/main/index.html

SpaceX: http://www.spacex.com/