steady wins the race here. sandra: less than 10 meters separating dragon from the station. >> copy, five meters. sandra: that call, five meters separating dragon from space station should be about a minute until we are docked and crew five is home. for the next few months. should here that call for chopped momentarily. >> two meters, chop. >> copy, two meters. >> two meters, the crew handoff point happening about 25 things before contact -- 25 seconds before contact. >> one meter. >> dragon, spacex on the big loop, contacting capture complete, continuation in progress. sandra: contact confirmed, dragon made contact with the international space station at 2:01 pm pacific just off of the west coast of africa. >> there are a few steps dragon has to complete before it is securely attached to the station. we will walk through those. we will have completion of that capture ring attack -- attraction. then we will begin the hard capture sequence. a few minutes after that, some time passes, we will have completion of that hard docking. >> dragon, spacex, ring retraction in progress. >> there, i mentioned the ring retraction for soft capture. >> the soft capture ring will retract until it indicates it is time for the hooks to drive and create a hard capture, there are 12 hooks that will be driven. it may take place in a series of six. the first six will drive and then the second six will drive. >> just like everything about the approach this morning. everything is in sequence. you might notice the view of dragon is a little darker than it was before as it was coming in. of course the station and now dragon are orbiting earth. it looks like they lost the sunlight there. a live view from spacex mission control, here in hawthorne, california. >> if you are just tuning in with us, crew-5 has safely completed talking to the international space station. that docking occurred at 4:01 p.m. just off of the west coast of africa, there journey -- their journey started yesterday afternoon after lifting off of the kennedy space center in florida, three first time flyers and one veteran astronaut from the japan aerospace expiration agency. the three first time flyers are nasa astronomical man, the first ever female commander of dragon, once she has upon the space station will be the first native american to visit the international space station as was nasa ash not josh, first-time flyer as well, the other first time liar is a cosma -- flyer, is a cosmonaut. >> we have a little bit over five and it's before docking is considered complete. sandra was mentioning the three first time space goers on this mission, i would have to imagine at this point in time, they must feel like children sitting in a car seat 20 to get out -- wanting to get out. they spent a long time on this journey, literally sense launch yesterday afternoon eastern time. they have friends aboard the station and i bet they are so excited to get out of there seats, suits, open up the hatch and get to hang out with their friends for a couple of months. sandra: absolutely. >> dragon spacex on the big loop, ring retraction complete, docking is holding for mcs reconfiguration. >> copy. sandra: we did hear confirmation that the soft capture ring retraction is complete. the next up is the heart capture sequence of start. there are 12 hooks that will drive into create that hard dock between dragon and the space station. we will first see six of those hook begin to drive and then the other six will have the docking be complete. >> looking forward to the next event, like i mentioned before, we have about 4 minutes left until docking is complete. the crew-5 crew will have the opportunity to dock and take off their students. -- suits. it is almost 90 minutes until they could to open the hatch and go see their friends, and get the -- greet the crew 4 crew and other members on the space station. as we mentioned before everything is a series of checks and check ins, a checklist a sequence of events, they are at the station. >> on the big loop, mcs configured, proceeding with book driving -- hook driving. >> there is a confirmation that we will drive the first set of six hooks and it is the heart capture process -- hard capture process. >> they are now driving, this is a second time we have done something with those hooks they were used shortly after lift off and they helped the nosecone to swing open. >> books are continuing to drive. -- hooks are continuing to drive. first six hook drivings. >> a live view inside the dragon capsule, the crew has their visors down in the locked position. this is to ensure that, for any unlikely event that dragon were to lose pressurization the suit would act as a second capsule, basically. a spacecraft of its own being able to provide environment and pressure for the crew in an emergency. sandra: the crew does where that spacesuit during all of the dynamic phases of flight, launch, docking, you're pretty shortly they will be able to take off the spacesuit. they will hang them up to dry before they begin to pressurize the vestibule and flow through the space station hatch. >> as we mentioned before the suits ar uniquee, did it for each astronaut they have their own storage locations the suit will be stored in. they will actually put them back on, not right before they come home they will do another fit check shortly before they come home. the crew-4 crew will do that soon in preparation for the return to earth hopefully next week. that is to make sure that the spacesuits they arrived in still fits well. no hotspots for movement, and is still good for them to wear home , as mentioned before those of us here on earth we know what gravity feels like. the body does change with a lack of gravity, in the microgravity environment astronauts live and work with for months of your bodily fluids change. your body fluids reach an equilibrium across your body where here in earth they are concentrated near our feet. wherever down is. the crew will put the spacesuits back on prior to beginning their journey home to make sure everything still fits well. we should be getting confirmation that docking is complete here in the next couple of seconds. standing by for confirmation of docking. sandra: we did hear that the first set of 6 hooks is driving and completed that process. the next six is driving. once we have that finished up we will have finished -- we will have docking complete. that will be finished in a few moments from now. the second set of hooks is continuing to drive. if you are just tuning into us, 4 astronauts arrived at the international space station minutes ago 2:01 pacific, 5:01 p.m. eastern time. they initialed -- they completed the initial docking sequence, now are doing the hard capture sequence, the first six hooks are derived, -- were derived and we are completing the last six. >> with a live view on your screen we can see the pilot and commander. from this viewpoint it is commander nicole mann on your screen. >> hard capture complete, moving on to ring retraction and then umbilical. >> copy, copy. >> there we just heard the hard capture is complete. good news there. sandra: that is the call we wanted to hear, all 12 of the hooks have made it to the states to -- space station as expected. we do have a hard capture. >> once the crew gives confirmation docking is complete they will be given the go to dock or take off their spacesuits, then begins the couple our process of opening the various hatches both on the dragon side as well as on the station side. even though they have arrived at station and we have confirmed hard stock there is still a couple of hours left to go before the crew gets -- before the crew-5