(Updated) NASA and SpaceX defer Dragon resupply ship's undocking from space station

NASA and SpaceX have postponed Thursday, August 18, undocking of a Dragon cargo resupply ship from the International Space Station (ISS) due to unfavourable weather conditions. The undocking is now targeted at 11:05 a.m. EDT Friday, August 19.

The Dragon spacecraft arrived at the station on July 16 when SpaceX's 25th Commercial Resupply Services mission delivered over 5,800 pounds of research investigations, crew supplies, and station hardware.

Dragon will now leave the station loaded with over 4,000 pounds of station supplies and science experiments after more than a month of docking the Harmony module's forward port. The scientific investigations that Dragon is carrying include an ESA-sponsored investigation, dubbed Bioprint FirstAid Handheld Bioprinter (Bioprint FirstAid), that enables the rapid use of formerly prepared bio-inks, containing the patient's own cells, to form a band-aid patch in the case of injury and the Spacesuit Evaporation Rejection Flight Experiment (SERFE) that demonstrates a new technology using water evaporation to remove heat from spacesuits and maintain appropriate temperatures for crew members and equipment during spacewalks, among others.

After re-entering Earth's atmosphere, the spaceship will make a parachute-assisted splashdown off the coast of Florida on Saturday, August 20, according to NASA.

Live coverage of Dragon's undocking and departure will air on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency's website beginning at 10:45 a.m. EDT.

.@NASA and @SpaceX managers have postponed the #Dragon cargo craft's undocking to 11:05 am ET on Friday due to weather conditions at the splashdown site. https://t.co/KgS9jaxQdD

— International Space Station (@Space_Station) August 18, 2022

Update 1

The uncrewed SpaceX Dragon spacecraft successfully departed the space station Friday at 11:05 a.m.

Initial departure burn complete. Dragon will re-enter Earth's atmosphere and splash down off the coast of Florida in ~28 hours pic.twitter.com/pq6rLWIvBN

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 19, 2022