A SpaceX Cargo Dragon capsule splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico Friday night. It ended a 36-day trip to the International Space Station with biomedical experiments, spacewalk equipment, and other hardware.
At 11:29 p.m. EDT on Friday, the unpiloted spacecraft splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico south of Tallahassee, Florida.
As recovery workers converged on the Dragon spacecraft in the Gulf of Mexico, SpaceX verified the capsule’s splashdown in a tweet.
To collect the capsule from the sea, SpaceX’s “Go Navigator” rescue ship was stationed near the splashdown zone.
Teams will open the hatch and rescue time-sensitive research specimens for transfer by helicopter to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There scientists will begin analyzing the tests once the Dragon capsule is on the deck of the recovery ship.
The capsule will be returned to Cape Canaveral for refurbishment and reuse on a future cargo mission by the recovery ship.
The Cargo Dragon spacecraft arrived with International Space Station at 10:45 a.m. EDT (1445 GMT) on Thursday, two days later than anticipated.
Managers decided to postpone the event until Tropical Storm Elsa had moved over to Florida.
The Dragon capsule deployed its parachutes a few minutes before splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico after plunging through the sky with a heat shield to protect against blistering temperatures.
This was SpaceX’s second resupply trip using the company’s improved Cargo Dragon spacecraft, which is based on the human-rated crew Dragon spaceship design.
The new Dragon spacecraft is expected to fly at least five times, compared to three missions in the previous configuration.
