SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft is a series of vehicles developed to transport cargo and crew to and from Earth orbit. The Dragon family includes:
- Dragon 1: Launched between 2010 and 2020, this version conducted 23 cargo missions to the International Space Station (ISS) under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services program.
- Dragon 2: Introduced in 2019, this iteration has both crewed (Crew Dragon) and uncrewed (Cargo Dragon) variants. Crew Dragon has been pivotal in ferrying astronauts to and from the ISS, while Cargo Dragon continues resupply missions.
On March 18, 2025, the Crew-9 mission’s Dragon spacecraft, named “Freedom,” safely splashed down off the coast of Florida. This mission concluded the extended stay of NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry “Butch” Wilmore, who had been aboard the ISS since June 2024 due to technical issues with Boeing’s Starliner capsule. They were accompanied by astronaut Nicholas Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.
The Dragon spacecraft is unique in its capability to return significant amounts of cargo to Earth and was the first private spacecraft to transport humans to the ISS.
For a visual overview of the Crew-9 mission’s return, you can watch NASA’s coverage below: