A SpaceX Dragon cargo resupply spacecraft will leave the International Space Station on Saturday, April 15, and return scientific research samples and equipment to Earth for NASA.
The agency will provide live coverage of Dragon's disembarkation and departure starting at 10:45 PM EDT on NASA Television, the NASA app, and online.
If you want to watch live, click the link below.

Following commands from ground controllers at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, Dragon will leave the station's Harmony module front port at 11:05 and fire its thrusters to move a safe distance from the station.

After re-entering Earth's atmosphere, the spacecraft will make a parachute-assisted jump off the Florida coast on Saturday, April 15. NASA will not publish the jump, but updates will be posted on the agency's space station blog.

https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/

Dragon will carry around 4,300 pounds of materials and scientific experiments back to Earth, designed to take advantage of the space station's microgravity environment. Leaping off the coast of Florida allows experiments to be quickly transported to NASA's Space Station Processing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, allowing researchers to collect data with minimal sample exposure to Earth's gravity.

Dragon arrived at the space station on March 16 as SpaceX's 27th Commercial Resupply Services mission for NASA, delivering over 6,000 pounds of research probe, crew supplies, and station equipment. It was launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A in Kennedy on March 14.

SOME SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH CARRIED BY DRAGON
• Space tomato harvest: To Complement the International Space Station Food System (Veg-05) experiment, samples from the Pick and Eat Salad-Crop Yield, Nutritional Value, and Acceptability will be sent back to Earth for analysis. The astronauts grew dwarf tomatoes in the station's Veggie miniature greenhouse and had three harvests on days 90, 97 and 104. To study the effects of light quality and fertilizer on fruit production, microbial safety and nutritional value, they froze tomatoes, water samples, and rods of growing equipment. The ability to grow plants in space for fresh food and a better crew life experience are important for future long-duration missions. The equipment could be adapted for use on Earth to provide fresh produce for those who do not have access to gardens and as horticultural therapy for older people and people with disabilities.
• Cultivating higher quality crystals: Hicari, a research from JAXA (Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency), tested a growth method and a silicon-germanium (SiGe) semiconductor using the Japanese Experimental Module Gradient Heating Furnace (JEM-GHF) produced crystals. This method of crystal growth could support the development of more efficient solar cells and semiconductor-based electronics. Crystals produced in space return to Earth for analysis.
• Analysis of aging arteries: Astronauts may experience accelerated arterial wall hardening and thickening after six months in space, and a daily session of aerobic exercise alone may not be enough to counteract these effects. Vascular Aging, a CSA (Canadian Space Agency) study, monitors these changes using arterial ultrasounds, blood samples, glucose tolerance tests, and wearable sensors. The results can help identify and assess risks to the cardiovascular health of astronauts and point to mechanisms that reduce this risk. For the world's aging population, understanding the mechanisms behind arterial stiffness can provide insights to guide prevention and treatment. Blood samples collected for investigation are returned to Earth for analysis.
• Fire safety: Solid Fuel Ignition and Extinction – Limit of Growth and Extinction (SoFIE-Gel) conducts microgravity combustion studies including how fuel temperature affects material flammability. The research could improve the safety of crew members on future missions by increasing understanding of early fire growth behavior, informing the selection of fire resistant spacecraft cabin materials, validating flammability patterns, and helping determine optimal firefighting techniques. Studying flames in space without buoyancy complications also aids in the development of computer combustion models for terrestrial applications. Gel samples from the study are returned to Earth for further analysis.

 

Source: https://www.nasa.gov/