NASA: Cookie dough arrives at ISS and capsule tests scheduled on Earth

At 4:10 a.m. EST this morning , NASA astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir successfully captured Northrop Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft using the International Space Stations robotic arm.

Cygnus launched Saturday and is carrying 8,200 pounds of research, supplies, and hardware  for the International Space Station.

What may be the most delicious cargo is a specially-designed "space oven" which is accompanied by cookie dough from Hilton's DoubleTree hotel chain.

Astronauts will try their hand at baking in space for the first time and will test what impact high heat and zero gravity have on the shape and consistency of the cookies.

Hilton says the experiment is aimed at “making long-duration space travel more hospitable".

Back on Earth, a three-hour launch window  will open at 7 a.m. MST (9 a.m. EST; 1400 GMT)  when Boeing will conduct a pad abort test of its Starliner spacecraft.

The full-scale model will take off from a launch pad at the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on fast-paced test of the capsule’s emergency escape system.

If the test is a go, Starliner’s four launch abort engines and several orbital maneuvering and altitude control thrusters will fire, pushing the spacecraft approximately 1-mile into the air.

The spacecraft’s crew module will use parachutes with landing airbags to touch down, then it will be recovered for analysis.

In just a couple of weeks, Boeing will roll out its Starliner at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station ahead of its unmanned test flight to the ISS on Dec. 17.

Boeing is racing against SpaceX to begin ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station in the first half of next year.

SpaceX has already completed its pad abort test for its Dragon space craft and also its an unmanned test flight to the ISS.

They are now gearing up for a ground test-firing of the Crew Dragon’s abort engines at Cape Canaveral as soon as this Wednesday, Nov. 6.