SpaceX's Dragon is on its way to Earth with scientific investigations and medical research

The CRS-24 cargo ship successfully exited the space station’s “excluding range” at 10:40 a.m. after a previously planned attempt was postponed due to bad weather at the landing point off the coast of Florida, according to SpaceX data. The radius of the forbidden sphere is 200 meters around the International Space Station.

NASA broadcast the undocking process live on NASA TV and its social media platforms.

The Dragon is expected to have a “parachute-assisted machine gun” off Panama City, Florida around 3:05 p.m. CT Monday, according to NASA. The live broadcast will not be broadcast, but NASA space station blog It will provide updates.

Experiments aboard the Dragon will be transported to NASA’s Space Station Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center after landing.

“The launch off the coast of Florida enables rapid transportation of experiments to the NASA Space Station processing facility at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, allowing researchers to collect data with minimal sample exposure to Earth’s gravity,” NASA said.

NASA Mission Control in the transmission said the cargo ship is bringing back medical supplies as well as more than 4,900 pounds of valuable “cargo and research.”

This includes a retired optical imaging microscope, which has supported extensive scientific research for 12 years, as well as samples from colloid studies.

The cytoskeleton, a survey aimed at analyzing the effect of microgravity on cell signaling molecules, is also on board the dragon.

“This investigation contributes to our understanding of how the human body responds to microgravity and could support the development of countermeasures to help crew members maintain optimal health on future missions,” NASA said.

The Dragon was launched on December 21, to deliver equipment, research and crew supplies to the International Space Station. It will mark the return of the 24th cargo ship from “NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services mission,” according to the Space Research Agency.