CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A SpaceX capsule returned to Earth on Wednesday with precious science samples from NASA’s one-year space station resident.
Less than six hours after leaving the International Space Station, the Dragon cargo carrier plopped into the Pacific, a few hundred miles off Southern California. SpaceX reported a good splashdown, with three red-and-white striped parachutes slowing the final descent.
The Dragon had been at the station for a month, dropping off supplies as well as an experimental, inflatable room that will pop open in two weeks. It was set free by the station’s big robot arm.
British astronaut Timothy Peake bade farewell to Dragon on behalf of the station’s entire six-man crew.
Nearly 4,000 pounds of items fill the Dragon, including blood and urine samples from astronaut Scott Kelly’s one-year mission. Kelly returned to Earth in March and has since retired from NASA. Researchers will use the medical specimens to study how the body withstands long journeys in space, in preparation for an eventual mission to Mars in the 2030s.
