Dragon Returns to Earth, Cargo Mission Ends

The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft is pictured departing the vicinity of the space station following its undocking from the International Space Station on January 9, 2023.
The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft is pictured departing the vicinity of the space station following its undocking from the International Space Station on January 9, 2023.

At 1:39 p.m. EST, the unpiloted SpaceX Dragon spacecraft splashed down off the coast of Florida, marking the return of the company’s 31st commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station for NASA.

The spacecraft carried back to Earth thousands of pounds of supplies and scientific experiments designed to take advantage of the space station’s microgravity environment after undocking at 11:05 a.m. Dec. 16, from the forward port of the space station’s Harmony module.

Filled with nearly 6,000 pounds of crew supplies, science investigations, and equipment, the spacecraft arrived to the orbiting laboratory Nov. 5 after it launched Nov. 4 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.


Learn more about station activities by following the space station blog@space_station and @ISS_Research on X, as well as the ISS Facebook and ISS Instagram accounts.

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