Commercial spacecraft, Dragon, landed on Pacific Ocean at 3:05 P.M. EDT, Sunday, bringing back valuable research and supplies from space, NASA reported.

The unmanned spacecraft left Earth on April 18 and was reported to have arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on April 20. It stayed there for close to a month, unloading its nearly 2.2 tons of supplies.

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Thereafter, astronauts and crew at the ISS had loaded the capsule with around 1.5 tons of cargo supplies and lab samples to send back to Earth.

American astronaut and station commander Steven Swanson initiated the launch of the Dragon Sunday morning. It landed a mere five hours after in the Pacific Ocean just 480 kilometers west of Baja, California.

Swanson radioed that the Dragon mission had been successful, acknowledging the help that the spacecraft was able to provide.

According to NASA, a recovery team will pick up the Dragon and bring it in a port near Los Angeles. They will be retrieving frozen samples sent from the ISS and immediately send these to their headquarters for research. After that, the cargo ship will be readied and forwarded to McGregor, Texas, the Dragon's manufacturer's research and testing complex.

The Dragon, which was developed by privately-owned SpaceX, is the first cargo ship of its kind to be able to return back to Earth. This is the third of the twelve missions SpaceX has been contracted for by NASA for resupplying missions to the ISS.

Meanwhile, NASA has also contracted U.S. company Orbital Sciences Corporation for a similar service. 

TagsSpaceX, Orbital Sciences Corp., International Space Station, ISS, NASA, Space news, austronaut, Steven Swanson