SpaceX’s Dragon cargo spacecraft has splashed down in the Pacific Ocean after travelling to the International Space Station packed with crew supplies and science experiments.
The spaceship arrived at the ISS last month after its launch from Florida, delivering around 5,800lbs of research, crew supplies and hardware to the orbiting lab.
Elon Musk’s Falcon 9 rocket launched the resupply capsule from Cape Canaveral Air Force base on April 2.
SpaceX said on social media on Saturday that it had returned to Earth.
The capsule left the space station 1.23pm GMT when it was released by the orbiting laboratory's robotic arm, and the landing was confirmed at 7.03pm.
The company’s official Twitter account gave updates as the spacecraft re-entered the earth’s atmosphere.
It tweeted: “Dragon's de-orbit burn is complete and trunk has been jettisoned. Pacific Ocean splashdown in ~30 minutes.”
“Dragon's drogue chutes and three main parachutes deployed nominally,” the account added half an hour later.
Five minutes after that, it said: “Good splashdown of Dragon confirmed, completing SpaceX’s third resupply mission to and from the @Space_Station with a flight-proven spacecraft.”
It completes SpaceX’s 14th mission to the research facility.
NASA said last month that among the cargo delivered are biological investigations related to measuring astronauts' health, a new facility to test how materials react to the harsh conditions of space and an Earth observatory that will study severe thunderstorms.
Space X previously delivered cargo to the space station in August last year.
