Space Exploration Technologies technicians use a lift to inspect a Dragon spacecraft as it is being attached to its Falcon 9 launch vehicle.

Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, technicians use a lift to inspect a Dragon spacecraft as it is being attached to its Falcon 9 launch vehicle. The rocket is being prepared for the company's first Commercial Resupply Services, or CRS-1, mission to the International Space Station. The capsule is scheduled to lift off on Oct. 7, 2012 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. The mission will be the company's second demonstration test flight for NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Program, or COTS.

The SpaceX CRS contract with NASA provides for 12 cargo resupply missions to the station through 2015, the first of which is targeted to launch in October 2012.SpaceX became the first private company to berth a spacecraft with the space station in 2012 during its final demonstration flight under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, or COTS, program managed by NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/living/launch/index.htmlPhoto credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky