Watch a time-lapse of the Falcon 9 rocket going vertical

SpaceX’s Dragon cargo craft ended a four-week mission Sunday with a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, returning from the International Space Station with more than 3,600 pounds of cargo, blood and urine samples, and specimens from a rodent research experiment aimed at helping patients with catastrophic bone injuries and osteoporosis.

A malfunction during a drop test over Nevada last month for SpaceX’s Crew Dragon program has engineers re-examining the crew capsule’s parachutes, and Boeing has also encountered parachute failures during testing for its commercial crew capsule, a senior NASA official confirmed Wednesday.

These photos of Thursday evening’s successful relaunch of a Falcon 9 rocket booster, which returned to Earth after a maiden mission last year, were taken at the Kennedy Space Center press site about 3.1 miles from launch pad 39A.