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[b]SpaceX CRS-21 Mission Overview[/b] A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the CRS-21 Dragon spacecraft to deliver cargo to and from the International Space Station for NASA. The first flight under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services-2 contract with SpaceX, the CRS-21 Dragon marks the first launch of the cargo-configured, second-generation capsule. The Dragon will carry research, logistics and hardware for the Expedition 64/65 crew including: [list][*]Nanoracks Bishop Airlock, the first commercially-funded space station airlock, carried in the Dragon's external trunk. The Bishop Airlock is an airtight segment used for transfer of payloads between the inside and outside of the station. It provides payload hosting, robotics testing and satellite deployment, while also serving as an outside toolbox for astronauts conducting spacewalks. [*]HemoCue, a commercial off-the-shelf device that will be tested for NASA's Human Research Program as a means of providing autonomous blood analysis for the care of crew members on future missions, including for Artemis flights to the moon. [*]BioAsteroid, an experiment from the University of Edinburgh to better understand how microbes interact with and change asteroids, information that could be used for future mining on asteroids. [*]SUBSA-BRAINS, an experiment from the University of Kentucky and the University of Washington that will look at how liquid metals behave in microgravity as a first step toward developing techniques for the construction of human space habitats, as well as to repair damage from micrometeoroids or space debris. [*]Cardinal Heart, a study from the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute on the effects of microgravity on heart tissue using tissue chips, in an effort to develop therapies on Earth and countermeasures for future space exploration.[/list] The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission previously flew on the Crew Dragon Demo-2 mission in May 2020, the ANASIS-II launch in July 2020 and SpaceX's 12th Starlink mission in October 2020. Following stage separation, SpaceX will attempt to recover the Falcon 9's first stage on an autonomous drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. The CRS-21 Dragon will return to Earth with research and cargo after spending about four weeks at the space station.
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