25-MAY-2012 :- The Dragon spacecraft became the first commercial spacecraft to successfully rendezvous with the International Space Station.

Dragon is a partially reusable spacecraft developed by SpaceX, an American private space transportation company based in Hawthorne, California. Dragon is launched into space by the SpaceX Falcon 9 two-stage-to-orbit launch vehicle, and SpaceX is developing a crewed version called the Dragon V2.

During its maiden flight in December 2010, Dragon became the first commercially built and operated spacecraft to be recovered successfully from orbit. On 25 May 2012, a cargo variant of Dragon became the first commercial spacecraft to successfully rendezvous with and be attached to the International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX is contracted to deliver cargo to the ISS under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services program, and Dragon began regular cargo flights in October 2012.

SpaceX is additionally developing a crewed variant of the Dragon called Dragon V2. Dragon V2 will be able to carry up to seven astronauts, or some combination of crew and cargo, to and from low Earth orbit. SpaceX has received several U.S. Government contracts to develop its crewed variant, including a Commercial Crew Development 2 (CCDev 2)-funded Space Act Agreement in April 2011, and a Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCap)-funded space act agreement in August 2012. The spacecraft's heat shield is furthermore designed to withstand Earth re-entry velocities from potential Lunar and Martian spaceflights.

The version 1 Dragon spacecraft consists of a nose-cone cap that jettisons after launch, a conventional blunt-cone ballistic capsule, and an unpressurized cargo-carrier trunk equipped with two solar arrays.^[19] The capsule uses a PICA-X heat shield – based on a proprietary variant of NASA's phenolic impregnated carbon ablator (PICA) material – designed to protect the capsule during Earth atmospheric reentry, even at high return velocities from Lunar and Martian missions. The Dragon capsule is re-usable, and can be flown on multiple missions. The trunk is not recoverable; it separates from the capsule before re-entry and burns up in Earth's atmosphere.

The spacecraft is launched atop a Falcon 9 booster. The Dragon capsule is equipped with 18 Draco thrusters, dual-redundant in all axes: any two can fail without compromising the vehicle's control over its pitch, yaw, roll and translation. During its initial cargo and crew flights, the Dragon capsule will land in the Pacific Ocean and be returned to the shore by ship. SpaceX plans to eventually install deployable landing gear and use eight upgraded SuperDraco thrusters to perform a solid earth propulsive landing.

The trunk section, which carries the spacecraft's solar panels and allows the transport of unpressurized cargo to the ISS, was first used for cargo on the SpaceX CRS-2 mission.