SpaceX Dragon Becomes First Re-Flown Commercial Spacecraft To Successfully Return To Earth

On Monday, Elon Musk's SpaceX became the first to re-fly a cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station and back, according to Space.com.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with a Dragon spacecraft onboard, left Earth on June 3, carrying over 4,100 pounds of cargo to the International Space Station. It successfully landed in the Pacific Ocean, southwest of the California coast on Monday morning at 8:14 a.m. EDT.

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SpaceX planned to take the spacecraft back to Long Beach, California after it landed, remove important cargo and send it to Houston, Texas for NASA analysis, according to a NASA blog post. Afterward, Dragon would return to a SpaceX test facility in McGregor, Texas.

“Good splashdown of Dragon confirmed — completing first re-flight of a commercial spacecraft to and from the @Space_Station,” SpaceX tweeted Monday.

A Dragon spacecraft in 2014 carried equipment into space for the first time. It carried over 5,000 pounds of cargo and research materials to the International Space Station, returning around 3,500 pounds.

"The space station is our springboard to deep space and the science samples returned to Earth are critical to improving our knowledge of how space affects humans who live and work there for long durations," said William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for human exploration and operations. "Now that Dragon has returned, scientists can complete their analyses, so we can see how results may impact future human space exploration or provide direct benefits to people on Earth."

After its successful 2014 flight, Dragon was remodeled and maintained to prepare for its second flight in 2017. After docking with the ISS for 36 hours upon landing in June, personnel began unloading the spacecraft in order to prepare to send the unmanned vehicle back to earth. Dragon spent one month at the ISS.

In order to send the spacecraft back to Earth, a robotic arm released it and set it on its path early Monday.

Jack Fischer, the astronaut operating the arm, saw the ship fly on its own and reenter Earth’s atmosphere. He tweeted a photograph with the caption “beautiful expanse of stars — but the ‘long’ orange one is SpaceX reentering! Congrats team for a successful splashdown & great mission!”

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Since SpaceX completed its second successful flight of a reusable commercial spacecraft, company costs may be cut as the same spacecraft can be sent into space multiple times.

Dragon was proven to be the only cargo spacecraft that can reenter Earth’s orbit without burning up. Orbital ATK’s Cygnus, Russia’s Progress and Japan’s H-11 Transfer Vehicle failed to complete their returns to Earth.