The Dragon’s back.
The SpaceX cargo capsule made its way back to Earth Sunday morning, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean after a month at the International Space Station. Dragon returned from ISS loaded with 5,400 pounds of cargo and experimental results. Those results will be turned over to NASA.
The capsule was loaded with test samples from NASA’s Microgravity Expanded Stem Cells investigation and its Tissue Regeneration-Bone Defect study. Those experiments respectively could help researchers understand how human cancers start and spread after being exposed to near zero-gravity and how weightlessness affects the regrowth of lost bone and tissue.
Dragon is headed to port for a cargo handover to @NASA. https://t.co/C3Pix9DGAg pic.twitter.com/wPdFTlsNsP
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 19, 2017
A month ago, SpaceX launched the Dragon cargo ship from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The unmanned craft was carrying research materials and supplies to the ISS. Following a GPS glitch, the capsule successfully made its way to space on Feb. 23.
Today we said good bye to #Dragon! She is taking part of us back to ground with her – important scientific samples, some from the crew! pic.twitter.com/faJUMrmDf1
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) March 19, 2017
This was SpaceX’s 10th cargo flight with NASA.
