14 DAY TRIAL // The first private spacecraft ever to attempt to dock on the International Space Station is seen in this image undergoing preparations at its processing facility, in Florida. The unmanned Dragon space capsule is attached to the Falcon 9 medium-lift delivery system.
Both vehicles are developed by Hawthorne, California-based Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX), under a $1.6 Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program contract with the American space agency.
In this picture, the spacecraft are located in a hangar near Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS). The rocket is scheduled to ferry Dragon to low-Earth orbit on May 7, after countless delays. At this point, things appear to be on track for launch.
If takeoff occurs on time, the capsule will be docked to the ISS – via the Canadarm-2 robotic arm – two days later, and experiments such as the NanoRacks-CubeLabs Module-9 delivered to the Expedition 31 crew in the next couple of days, NASA reports.