After completing its second successful cargo mission to the Interntional Space Station (ISS), the SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean off of the Baja coast. The splashdown occurred at 12:36 PM eastern time on Tuesday.
In a statement on its web site, NASA’s Julie Robinson, International Space Station Program scientist, said, “The scientific research delivered and being returned by Dragon enables advances in every aspect of NASA’s diverse space station science portfolio, including human research, biology and physical sciences.”
Robinson continued, “There are more than 200 active investigations underway aboard our orbiting laboratory in space. The scientific community has eagerly awaited the return of today’s Dragon to see what new insights the returned samples and investigations it carries will unveil.”
SpaceX and their Dragon spacecraft are successfully demonstrating the viability of commercial partners working with NASA. While partners like SpaceX perform the more mundane launch and resupply aspects of space exploration, the agency is free to focus on scientific and manned exploration missions.
The most recent cargo, returned from the ISS on this mission, includes research on physical and biological processes that cannot be done anywhere else such as applied research to improve lives on Earth, and exploration research to help humans move safely beyond Earth orbit.
Currently, the Dragon is the only space station resupply spacecraft able to return a significant amount of cargo to Earth. This most recent mission began with the launch on March 1 with the Dragon carrying about 1,268 pounds (575 kilograms) of supplies and investigations. On splashdown Tuesday, the vehicle was bringing back roughly 2,668 pounds (1,210 kilograms) of science samples, equipment and education activities.