In February 2016, it was announced that
NASA had awarded a contract extension to SpaceX for five additional CRS missions (CRS-16 to
CRS-20).[9] In June 2016, a NASA
Inspector General report had this mission manifested in August 2018,[10] but it was later delayed to 29 November 2018,[11] 4 December 2018,[8] and 5 December 2018.[12]
The first stage booster
B1050.1 experienced a grid fin hydraulic pump stall on re-entry. This caused the first stage to go into a roll after the re-entry burn. It failed to reach
Landing Zone 1, but recovered enough to achieve a water landing off Cape Canaveral. Shortly after the landing,
Elon Musk, 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.[13]
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 2,500 kg (5,500 lb) of cargo to
Earth.[1]
Payload
NASA had contracted for the CRS-16 mission from SpaceX and therefore determined the primary payload, date/time of launch, and
orbital parameters for the Dragon
space capsule. CRS-16 carried a total of 2,573 kg (5,672 lb) of material into orbit. This included 1,598 kg (3,523 lb) of pressurised cargo with packaging bound for the International Space Station, and 975 kg (2,150 lb) of unpressurised cargo composed of two external station experiments: the
Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) lidar and the Robotic Refueling Mission 3.[14][15] Forty mice also flew with the payload in an experiment called
Rodent Research-8 (RR-8).[12]
^Platnick, Steve (May–June 2018).
"Editor's Corner"(PDF). The Earth Observer. 30 (3). NASA/GSFC: 3. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the
public domain.
^"Rodent Research-8". NASA/Space Station Research Explorer. Retrieved 12 August 2020. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the
public domain.
Launches are separated by dots ( • ), payloads by commas ( , ), multiple names for the same satellite by slashes ( / ). Crewed flights are underlined. Launch failures are marked with the † sign. Payloads deployed from other spacecraft are (enclosed in parentheses).