A Dragon CRS-24 cargo ship splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean at 4:05 pm EST (21:05 GMT) on January 24 off the coast of Florida near Panama City.
"Dragon splashdown confirmed, ending SpaceX's 24th space station resupply mission," SpaceX tweeted.
A SpaceX cargo ship has returned nearly 5,000 pounds (2,267 kg) of scientific data to Earth, including a "cytoskeleton" studying cellular signaling in humans, and returned a 12-year-old light microscope decommissioned after more than a decade of use in space. orbit. These and other experiments will be returned to NASA's Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida, for transmission to scientists, SpaceX said in a statement.
The spacecraft completed its mission after just over a month in space, allowing Expedition 66 astronauts to receive fresh food and supplies from Earth on December 22, the day after launch, before the crew filled the spacecraft with scientific data to return home .
The splashdown was originally scheduled for the wee hours of Monday morning local time, but SpaceX said two days of bad weather at potential splashdown sites in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida prevented takeoff.
Docking finally took place on Sunday (January 23) at 10:40 AM EST (1540 GMT) and was broadcast live on NASA TV.
NASA did not cover the splashdown, but the agency and SpaceX provided updates via social media. The target location was close enough to NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Florida's Space Coast (an hour east of Orlando) to allow fast delivery of science experiment materials that need to be refrigerated.
