SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft Splashes Down Completing ISS Resupply Mission

The SpaceX Dragon resupply ship approaches the International Space Station on March 16, 2023. Both spacecraft were flying 269 miles above the Indian Ocean near Madagascar at the time of this photograph. Credit: NASA

After re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, SpaceX’s uncrewed Dragon cargo spacecraft made a parachute-assisted splashdown at 1:38 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, April 29, off the coast of Tampa, Florida. This marked the return of the company’s 30th contracted cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station for NASA. The spacecraft carried more than 4,100 pounds of valuable scientific experiments and other cargo back to Earth.

Next, four SpaceX Crew-8 members will board a Dragon crew spacecraft on Thursday, May 4, and undock the vehicle from the forward port of the station’s Harmony module and redock to Harmony’s zenith port. NASA TV coverage will begin on Thursday at 7:30 a.m. Undocking is scheduled at 7:45 a.m. with redocking scheduled at 8:28 a.m.

April 28, 2024: International Space Station Configuration. Five spaceships are parked at the space station including the SpaceX Dragon crew spacecraft Endeavour, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus space freighter, the Soyuz MS-25 crew ship, and the Progress 86 and 87 resupply ships. Credit: NASA

That will clear the forward port of Harmony for the arrival of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft with Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams aboard on the Crew Flight Test (CFT) mission. They are scheduled to launch at 10:34 pm on Monday, May 6, night atop an Atlas 5 rocket from Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.