Dragon arrives at space station in historic first

Flying Dragon: This image provided by NASA-TV shows the SpaceX Dragon commercial cargo craft, top, after Dragon was grappled by the Canadarm2 robotic arm and connected to the International Space Station on Friday. Dragon is scheduled to spend about a week docked with the station before returning to Earth on May 31 for retrieval. (AP/NASA)

Space station astronauts have captured the Dragon.

The privately bankrolled Dragon capsule arrived at the International Space Station on Friday, making history as the first commercial delivery ship in orbit.

Astronauts Donald Pettit and Andre Kuipers used the space station's robot arm to snare the Dragon after a few hours of extra maneuvering.

NASA is handing over routine orbital flights to private business so it can concentrate on grander destinations like asteroids and Mars. The California-based SpaceX company is leading the charge under billionaire Elon Musk, who helped create PayPal.

Dragon will remain at the space station for nearly a week. It will be freed next Thursday to return to Earth with a load of experiments.