PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. – Looking like a giant toasted marshmallow on the back of a boat, SpaceX’s Cargo Dragon spacecraft was set to float by Jetty Park Tuesday morning, eventually making its way back to Kennedy Space Center.
The spacecraft is returning to KSC where it launched in June sending more than 7,000 pounds of hardware, experiments and supplies to the International Space Station.
The Cargo Dragon spacecraft first arrived to the ISS on June 4 and departed on July 8 after a slight delay due to Tropical Storm Elsa. The capsule is returning with some experiments conducted onboard the orbiting laboratory and is bringing back about 3,000 pounds of cargo, according to NASA.
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After deorbit the spacecraft splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico at 11:30 p.m. Friday off the coast of Tallahassee. This marked the second splashdown of a commercial spacecraft off the Florida coast; previously the spacecraft landed in the Pacific Ocean.
After teams collected the spacecraft this weekend, it has been traveling via SpaceX’s Go Navigator recovery ship back to Port Canaveral. The boat was making its way into the Jetty early Tuesday morning ahead of sunrise.
The capsule will be brought back to Kennedy Space Center’s Space Station Processing Facility where the experiments will be handed off to researchers.