The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft landed safely in the Pacific Ocean late this morning, and is currently being fished out by SpaceX employees.
Dragon splashed into the ocean (click left for larger image) at 11:42 a.m. EDT this morning a few hundred miles west of Baja, Calif. SpaceX is now retrieving Dragon via a 185-foot barge equipped with a crane, a dozen engineers and technicians, and a four-person dive team.
During an afternoon press conference, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said officials were getting ready to attach the cables to Dragon and pull it out of the water and onto the barge. "Everything's looking really good," Musk said.
"It's really great; it's like seeing your kid come home," he said.
The International Space Station Expedition 31 crew members released the Dragon from its grips at 5:49 a.m. EDT this morning. The spacecraft then began a series of departure burns and maneuvers that allowed it to move beyond the 656-foot "keep out sphere" around the ISS. In total, the Dragon spent 5 days, 16 hours, and 5 minutes berthed to the station.
Once Dragon is recovered, it will be inspected by NASA officials, and if everything checks out, SpaceX can start prepping for regular journeys to the ISS. Those missions, known as Commercial Resupply Service (CRS), are intended to bring supplies and experiments to the station and then back to earth. According to SpaceX, Dragon is the only spacecraft that can bring back a significant amount of cargo from the ISS. "The other cargo vehicles serving the space station - from Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency - can carry cargo up but all are destroyed after leaving the station," SpaceX said.
Michael Suffredini, manager of the ISS program office, said today that he does not expect a long delay before the first CRS mission. "I was looking at the criteria we set for the mission and pretty much every one of the them looked solid," he said. "I think it looks like 100 percent success."
The only issue Dragon encountered was with its laser imaging detection and ranging (LIDAR) system upon approach to the ISS. Musk said today, however, that SpaceX made adjustments while Dragon was docked to the ISS, which were tested as it departed this morning. "We confirmed coming out that those [changes] worked," he said.
Musk admitted to be surprised by the mission's success. "When you see it operate, you know all the things that can go wrong," he said. "This may sound sort of odd, but when you see it actually work, you're sort of surprised."
Musk said today that President Obama called him last week to congratulate SpaceX on becoming the first commercial company to send a spacecraft to the ISS, as did many members of Congress.
When asked what message SpaceX would like to send to policymakers, Musk said the mission "shows that commercial spaceflight can be successful." As a result, "it makes sense for there to be more resources applied in this direction," Musk said. "If you have something that works, you have to follow through."
The SpaceX CEO was also encouraged by how interested the American public seemed to be in Dragon. "We want kids to be inspired by spaceflight and this seems to have gotten their attention," he said.
Though there are no set plans for Dragon at this point, Musk said that a nationwide tour that would allow kids to see and learn about the spacecraft would be ideal.
What's next? In addition to CRS missions, Musk pointed to an ongoing competition with other commercial spaceflight companies to have Dragon upgraded to carry astronauts. Next year, there's also the planned launch of Falcon Heavy, which SpaceX says will be the world's largest rocket.
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