Washington. July 10. INTERFAX - The American cargo spacecraft Cargo Dragon, which undocked from the International Space Station (ISS), landed normally in the Atlantic on Saturday, the developer company SpaceX said.
"The Dragon's landing has been confirmed," the company said in a statement.
The soft landing of the descent capsule with the help of a parachute system was carried out at 06:30 Moscow time in the Gulf of Mexico. A SpaceX search and rescue vessel with a helicopter on board was located in the landing area, which, after lifting the capsule out of the water, delivered it to land.
Cargo Dragon brought more than 2.4 tons of cargo to Earth, including the results of scientific experiments conducted on the ISS.
Currently, it is the only spacecraft to supply the ISS, which is capable of returning cargo to Earth.
In total, the Cargo Dragon ship stayed in the ISS for a month. It was launched into orbit on June 3 by SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch vehicle, which launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Center in Florida. Two days later, on June 5, it successfully docked with the ISS, delivering to the station more than three tons of food, as well as equipment and materials for conducting up to 250 scientific experiments by the station crew. In particular, the spacecraft brought two new, more powerful IROSA solar panels in an unpressurized compartment, which the astronauts installed and deployed at the station during three spacewalks in June.
This is the 22nd flight of the SpaceX "truck" to the ISS and the second mission of its modified version (Cargo Dragon 2), which is now able to deliver 20% more cargo to the ISS, and can also independently dock with the station without the traditional Canadarm2 manipulator arm for subsequent mooring, like previous ships.
The new cargo ship is designed for five flights to the ISS and return to Earth instead of three in the Cargo Dragon 1 variants. It can remain in the station for 75 days compared to the 40 days of the former "truck".
The launch of the ships in the Cargo Dragon 2 version is carried out under the second contract between NASA and SpaceX for the supply of the station.
As part of the first contract, from October 2012 to March 2020, SpaceX carried out 20 launches of Cargo Dragon cargo ships to the ISS. One of them (in 2015) ended in failure due to the accident of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle.
On July 2, the Progress MS-17 transport cargo ship docked to the ISS with a supply of fuel, water and other cargo. The "truck" docked to the Search module of the Russian segment of the ISS.
