Dragon CRS-2 SpX-35

Dragon SpX-35 is SpaceX’s thirty-fifth resupply run to the Station, the eighteenth flown by the Cargo Dragon 2 variant since it took over from the original Dragon in late 2020. The vehicle docks autonomously to the zenith port of the Harmony module and stays for about a month while the crew unloads, then reloads it with returnables — the only resupply vehicle that brings things back instead of burning them up. Splashes down off the Florida coast within hours of undocking, then drives by truck to the NASA labs in Houston.

The notable payload on this flight is a new science freezer rack — the third generation of the GLACIER hardware, capable of holding biological samples at minus 80°C for the entire return cruise. That cold chain matters for the Station’s protein-crystal and stem-cell experiments: a thaw on the way home would erase a year of work in the lab.