KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — While many were in bed, except for a few diehard space fans who were awake to watch, NASA and SpaceX launched nearly 7,000 pounds of food, experiments and other goodies to the International Space Station early Monday morning.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket sent up NASA’s 32nd commercial resupply mission in the company’s Dragon capsule to the floating laboratory, stated SpaceX.

The Falcon 9 took off in an instantaneous launch at 4:15 a.m. ET from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, according to NASA.

The launch needed to be instantaneous to catch up and then dock with the ISS’s Harmony module at 8:20 a.m. ET, Tuesday, April 22.

“The Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to remain at the space station until May, when it will depart and return to Earth with research and cargo, splashing down off the coast of California,” NASA described.

Third time’s a charm

The first-stage booster, B1092, only has two launches to its name.

• Starlink 12-13
• NROL-69 mission

Falcon 9 landed at Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

About the resupply mission

The Commercial Resupply Services is where NASA awarded contracts to two American companies —SpaceX and Northrop Grumman — to send up food, equipment and experiments to the International Space Station.  

For this mission, this will be the 32nd time SpaceX has done a resupply mission for NASA. Inside the California-based company’s Cargo Dragon capsule is 6,700 pounds of food, research equipment and supplies.

Some of the more interesting experiments are:

See more of the experiments here.