Soft Docking News Today

And just to point out it will be a few hours before -- like, following docking to the hatch opening. but right now, the crew is in their space suits because they have to wear their space suits when theyre going through a dynamic phase of flight which includes, of course, the launch, but also this docking period. but shortly after the docking and pressurization is completed. theyll be able to stake off the space suits. get into comfortable clothes and open that hatch and get on that space station...

To that docking, until it actually performs a sealed connection. then well be able to engage 12 hooks that perform the hard capture. six of those were actually engaged during the launch. and on the way to, orbit, they open up that you see there to deploy the nose cone. but 12 of those are now going to engage after the soft capture ring has retracted. after those 12 engage, well have a hard ring. they will start to connect to umbilicals that will provide hard line data and power to dragon through...

Space ship "endeavour," they do have the ability to take control of the manual docking, first with the soft docking and the hard docking and then the latches attach the spacecraft to the international space station. this is all done atautoautonomo so they can press ahead with the docking. boris, christi, well continue to bring you all the details and update as this mission proceeds. >> okay, rachel, we want to listen in to some of the conversations going on there at nasa. >> accelerating for doc...

Under three meters. soft docking, international docking. >> two meters. >> two meters, we heard the call crews hands-off point. >> one meter. >> one meter to go. >> dragon spacex on the big loop soft capture complete. attenuation in progress. >> spacex "endeavour" copy all.

>> lets go back to rachel crane now. rachel, what did you make of what you just heard there? >> reporter: well, that was music to everyones ears here on earth. but also particularly those in orbit, in that spacecraft and on the space station. that means they are proceeding forward as we heard, the spacecraft is moving towards the docking. they are really approaching at just a crawl at this point. so its going to be a few more minutes until that docking takes place. but they were able to proceed ...

Docking, were only 17 1/2 meters away. weve confirmed the alignment. and weve got additional screws now trained on dragon, giving additional situational awareness. were continuing to get those updates from the navigational equipment on board dragon. the lidar is giving realtime range rates. were getting realtime degrees. and thats also being fed to the crew in realtime. they dont have that video, but they do have all of that additional data thats able to give them enough data to make decisions f...