Trent J. Perrotto
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-0321
trent.j.perrotto@nasa.gov
WASHINGTON -- NASA Administrator Charles
Bolden visited SpaceX Headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., Thursday, capping a tour
of SpaceX facilities to thank employees for their part in making the first
mission by a private company to the International Space Station a success.
Bolden and SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer
Elon Musk addressed more than 1,000 employees who helped design, launch and
safely recover the company's Dragon capsule in May following its trip to the
space station.
"NASA has its sights set on
reaching an asteroid and Mars and commercial space companies like SpaceX are
helping make that possible by taking over the challenging transportation of
cargo to low Earth orbit," Bolden said. "The International Space
Station is the key to our human spaceflight efforts right now and SpaceX's
successful resupply demonstration mission helped ensure it can achieve its full
potential. We look forward to Dragon becoming a regular visitor to the
station."
While on-site, Bolden had an opportunity
to see the first Dragon spacecraft to be recovered by the company in December
2010, following a demonstration mission to orbit and safely return a capsule.
The trip to Hawthorne followed a visit
by Bolden and Musk Wednesday to the SpaceX Rocket Development Facility in
McGregor, Texas, where they viewed the most recently recovered Dragon capsule.
The spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean May 31 following its 9-day
mission to carry and return cargo to the space station.
Bolden also had the opportunity to view
some of the 1,367 pounds of cargo the Dragon spacecraft returned to Earth.
Dragon currently is the only spacecraft capable of returning a significant
quantity of science experiments and cargo from the station. Experiments will be
given back to researchers hoping to gain new insights provided by the station's
unique microgravity environment. The cargo was transferred to NASA June 13 and
will be taken to the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston for further
processing.
Dragon's journey to the station was
SpaceX's second demonstration mission under NASA's Commercial Orbital
Transportation Services (COTS) Program, which provides investments intended to
lead to regular resupply missions to the space station and stimulate the commercial
space industry in the United States.
Images of Bolden and Musk in Hawthorne
and McGregor are available at http://go.nasa.gov/Ku0Ctq.
For more information about NASA's COTS
Program and SpaceX, visit http://www.nasa.gov/spacex.
For more information about Administrator
Bolden, visit http://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/bolden_bio.html.
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