Live coverage: Dragon cargo capsule returns to Earth

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.

Picking up where they left off last week, two space station astronauts ventured back outside the outpost Wednesday to continue the replacement of aging batteries in the lab’s solar power system. Two more spacewalks later this month should complete the multi-year project.

Pettit will fly to the orbiting outpost alongside Russian cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner on the Soyuz MS-26 mission. Liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome is set for 12:23 p.m. EDT (1623 UTC).