SpaceX CRS-16, also known as SpX-16, was a Commercial Resupply Service mission to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ...

launched on 5 December 2018 aboard a

Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a partially reusable medium lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo and crew into Earth orbit, produced by American aerospace company SpaceX. The rocket has two stages. The first (booster) stage carries the second stage and payl ...

launch vehicle. The mission was contracted by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

and is flown by

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launcher, and a satellite communications corporation headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the stated goal of ...

. This CRS mission is the first with the

Falcon 9 Block 5 Falcon 9 Block 5 is a Reusable launch system#Partial reusable launch systems, partially reusable two-stage-to-orbit medium-lift launch vehicle designed and manufactured in the United States by SpaceX. It is the fifth version of Falcon 9 Full Thr ...

. It carried the

Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI, pronounced ) is a NASA mission to measure how deforestation has contributed to atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

, but recovered enough to achieve a water landing off Cape Canaveral. Shortly after the landing,

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The Bori ...

, CEO of SpaceX, stated the booster appeared undamaged and was being recovered. After recovering the booster, it was found to be too damaged to fly again and was scrapped for parts. On 13 January 2019, Dragon was released from ISS at 23:33 UTC and deorbited, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean approximately 5 hours later on 14 January 2019 at 05:10 UTC, returning more than of cargo to

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

Payload

NASA has contracted for the CRS-16 mission from SpaceX and therefore determines the primary payload, date/time of launch, and

orbital parameters Orbital elements are the parameters required to uniquely identify a specific orbit. In celestial mechanics these elements are considered in two-body systems using a Kepler orbit. There are many different ways to mathematically describe the same ...

for the Dragon

space capsule A space capsule is an often-crewed spacecraft that uses a blunt-body reentry capsule to reenter the Earth's atmosphere without wings. Capsules are distinguished from other satellites primarily by the ability to survive reentry and return a payl ...

. CRS-16 carried a total of of material into orbit. This included of pressurised cargo with packaging bound for the International Space Station, and of unpressurised cargo composed of two external station experiments: the

Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI, pronounced ) is a NASA mission to measure how deforestation has contributed to atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

CubeSat from the

University of Southern Indiana The University of Southern Indiana (USI) is a public university just outside of Evansville, Indiana. Founded in 1965, USI enrolls 9,750 dual credit, undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students in more than 130 areas of study. USI offers program ...

and the TechEdSat-8 CubeSat from NASA's

Ames Research Center The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laborat ...

. The following is a breakdown of cargo bound for the ISS: * Crew supplies: * Science investigations: ** Rodent Research-8 (RR-8) ** Molecular Muscle Experiment (MME) ** Growth of Large, Perfect Protein Crystals for Neutron Crystallography (Perfect Crystals) * Spacewalk equipment: * Vehicle hardware: * Computer resources: * Russian hardware: * External payloads: **

Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI, pronounced ) is a NASA mission to measure how deforestation has contributed to atmospheric CO2 concentrations.