A SpaceX cargo capsule is set to head back toward Earth today (Dec. 16), and you can watch the action live.
A robotic Dragon freighter will undock from the International Space Station's (ISS) Harmony module today at 11:05 a.m. EST (1605 GMT), if all goes according to plan. An undocking attempt set for Dec. 6 was delayed "due to forecasted unfavorable weather conditions at the splashdown site off the coast of Florida" NASA said in a statement. Other planned attempts after that were pushed back for similar reasons.
NASA will stream the departure live, beginning at 10:50 a.m. EST (1550 GMT). Space.com will carry a simulcast from Sen, an Earth-imaging company whose high-resolution cameras are mounted to the exterior of the space station.
This Dragon is flying SpaceX's 31st contracted ISS resupply mission for NASA, which explains the flight's name: CRS-31. The capsule delivered about 6,000 pounds (2,700 kilograms) of food, equipment and scientific experiments to the station on Nov. 5.
Related: SpaceX launches 3 tons of cargo on 31st ISS resupply flight for NASA (video)
Dragon will carry cargo down from the ISS as well — "thousands of pounds of supplies and scientific experiments designed to take advantage of the space station’s microgravity environment," NASA officials wrote in a CRS-31 undocking preview.
Dragon is the only operational ISS freighter that can do such two-way deliveries. The others — Northrop Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft and Russia's Progress vehicle — burn up in Earth's atmosphere when their cargo missions are done.
The CRS-31 Dragon is expected to splash down off the coast of Florida a day after undocking, enabling "quick transportation of the experiments to NASA’s Space Systems Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center," as agency officials wrote in the update.
NASA will not livestream Dragon's splashdown, but rather give updates via its ISS blog.
Editor's note: This story was updated on Dec. 6 to reflect the CRS-31 undocking delay to Dec. 12, then again on Dec. 12 with the new target date of Dec. 14, again on Dec. 13 with the new target of Dec. 15, and again on Dec. 14 with the new target of Dec. 16.
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