A space station astronaut is celebrating her 50th birthday with the coolest present ever — a supply ship bearing ice cream and other treats.
SpaceX’s latest cargo delivery showed up Monday at the International Space Station after a day in transit. Overseeing the automated docking was NASA astronaut Megan McArthur.
”No one’s ever sent me a spaceship for my birthday before. I appreciate it,” she radioed after the capsule arrived.
Also read: Looking for a smartphone? Check Mobile Finder here.
Launched Sunday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the capsule contains lemons, cherry tomatoes, avocados and ice cream for McArthur and her six crewmates, along with a couple tons of research and other gear.
The shipment arrived just a few days ahead of the first of three spacewalks.
Starting Friday, the two Russians on board will perform back-to-back spacewalks to outfit a new laboratory that arrived in July.
Then a Japanese-French spacewalking duo will venture out Sept. 12 to install a bracket for new solar panels due to arrive next year. That NASA-directed spacewalk should have occurred last week, but was postponed after U.S. spacewalker, Mark Vande Hei, suffered a pinched nerve in his neck. Station managers opted to replace him with French astronaut Thomas Pesquet.
