Quote:
The California SpaceX company has seen its unmanned Dragon cargo ship attach successfully to the International Space Station (ISS).
Astronauts onboard the platform used its robotic arm to grasp the vehicle and attach it to a berthing port.
Dragon is the first commercial vessel to visit the space station.
It is also the first American ship to go to the orbiting laboratory since the US space agency (Nasa) retired its shuttles last year.
US astronaut Don Petit was inside the ISS at the controls of the Canadarm2.
He reached out with the robotic appendage and grabbed the Dragon capsule at 13:56 GMT (14:56 BST).
"Houston, looks like we got us a Dragon by the tail," he radioed to Nasa mission control in Texas.
The capture was met by applause from controllers, at the Nasa centre and at the SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne, California, where Dragon's flight is also being overseen.
Just under two hours later, Petit used the arm to position the Dragon under the ISS's Harmony connecting node. A good seal was confirmed at 16:02 GMT (17:02 BST).
The ISS crew will go inside the ship on Saturday to unload its stores.
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Saturday night - Pizza and Coke .....
