Article Posted on : - May 12, 2016

The Dragon spacecraft spalshes down in the Pacific Ocean. A SpaceX photo

CAPE CANAVERAL (BNS): The Dragon unmanned space capsule of SpaceX carrying over 1,678-kg of NASA cargo and science and technology demonstration samples from the International Space Station (ISS) splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 2:51 pm EDT (6.51 pm GMT) Wednesday.

The spacecraft had undocked from the ISS earlier on Wednesday.

It was launched by SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on April 8, and arrived at the space station on April 10, carrying around 3,175-kg of supplies and scientific cargo to the ISS.

The spacecraft will be taken by ship to Long Beach, California where some cargo will be removed and returned to NASA, and then be prepared for shipment to SpaceX's test facility in McGregor, Texas, for processing, NASA said in a statement while detailing out the technological and biological experiments which were conducted in the orbital outpost and have been carried by the space capsule.

The spacecraft has also brought back to Earth the final batch of human research samples from former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly's historic one-year mission. These samples will be analysed for various studies, the space agency said.

Dragon is currently the only station resupply spacecraft able to return a significant amount of cargo to Earth.