CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—A sleek new American-built capsule with just a test dummy aboard docked smoothly with the International Space Station on March 3, bringing the United States a big step closer to getting back in the business of launching astronauts.
The white, bullet-shaped Dragon capsule, developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company under contract to NASA, closed in on the orbiting station nearly 260 miles above the Pacific Ocean and, flying autonomously, linked up on its own, without the help of the robotic arm normally used to guide spacecraft into position.
