The ISS accelerated slightly after the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft received orbital support. SpaceX’s 31st commercial resupply mission launched on November 4, launching the Dragon cargo ship to rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS) and docked at the station’s forward port the next day. Today (November 8), Dragon performed its first orbital elevation maneuver to stabilize the ISS’s orbit in low Earth orbit.

Such maneuvers are common for an orbiting laboratory that requires periodic support to maintain altitude above the Earth and prevent orbital degradation of the planet’s atmosphere. Historically, this has been accomplished with Russian Soyuz, Progress and other spacecraft, but this is the first time this has been done on SpaceX’s Dragon. This turning point marks the beginning of the symbolic end for the ISS; because data from the maneuver will be used to develop the orbital lander, which NASA has contracted with SpaceX to build to submerge the decommissioned space station in the Pacific Ocean after 2030.

“NASA and SpaceX observed operations as the company’s Dragon spacecraft performed the first demonstration of boost capabilities for the International Space Station at 12:50 a.m. ET today,” NASA posted on X.

Dragon is not the first U.S.-built spacecraft to borrow fuel to orbit the space station. NASA tested the orbital acceleration of the ISS in 2022 using the Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo ship. But data from Dragon’s overclocking will eventually pave the way for a catastrophic “overclocking” in orbit of the space station.