SpaceX Dragon Prepares to Undock from the ISS With Groundbreaking Human Research Samples

The packing inside the ISS doesn’t appear to be from a movie. It appears to be crew members moving with the cautious economy of people who have discovered that “floating” still means “bumping into things,” labeled bags tucked into tight corners, and soft straps pulled taut. A SpaceX Dragon capsule is being handled more like a cooler than a vehicle somewhere in that silent choreography—because time begins to count differently once it undocks.

According to NASA, at 12:05 p.m. ET on Thursday, February 26, the Dragon cargo spacecraft will autonomously undock from the ISS’s Harmony module forward-facing port, easing away with a brief thruster burst. With the kind of accuracy that makes spaceflight seem organized even though you know it’s a sequence of managed risks piled on top of each other, coverage starts at 11:45 a.m. ET. The splashdown is scheduled for later, at approximately 11:44 p.m. NASA says it won’t livestream the PT off the coast of California, which seems almost symbolic: the most sensitive science takes place far away from the cameras.

The feature that consistently detracts from the undocking mechanics is what Dragon is bringing back. Research samples and equipment intended for retrieval and analysis on Earth have been loaded by the station crew. These items include stem cells that have been programmed to develop into heart and brain cells, materials exposed to the harsh environment of space, and flat liquid crystal films. Reading that list gives us the impression that we are simultaneously witnessing two futures: one in which microgravity is used as a laboratory instrument and another in which it is integrated into a supply chain.

Particularly, the stem cell work has an odd emotional burden. Cells act differently in microgravity; they can grow in ways that cause biologists on Earth to lean closer and squint at results, questioning whether the difference is noise or a signal. According to NASA’s CRS-33 advisory, the return cargo includes frozen samples linked to studies on the effects of microgravity on the growth of brain and heart stem cells. The long arc points toward diseases like Parkinson’s, ALS, and the slow unraveling that families are all too familiar with. Some of this might turn out to be incremental knowledge rather than a miracle. However, medicine typically operates on incremental knowledge.

Although they are less personal, other samples are just as important. In order to investigate degradation, Euro Material Ageing sent a sizable collection of materials into space for a year. These materials included coatings, insulation, and 3D-printed materials that were subjected to temperature fluctuations, radiation, and vacuum without the protective shield of Earth’s atmosphere. It’s easy to forget that “space exploration” is frequently a tale of materials science gradually defeating physics in minor conflicts, making the subsequent mission marginally less precarious than the previous one.

Then there is the liquid crystals experiment in Thailand, which tested films in microgravity and may have ramifications for optical and electronic devices. Until you consider what “better optics” and “more stable films” can mean when long-duration missions are the aim—clearer diagnostics, better sensors, and fewer failures—it seems like a niche line item. Although it’s still unclear if these particular findings will spread swiftly into consumer technology, the path is there and it rarely follows a straight line.

Projects that seem almost playful in their usefulness are also part of the return cargo. NASA outlines SpaceDuino, which measured vibrations using an open-source program and a commercially available single-board computer, pointing to a future where space instruments become more affordable and iterative more quickly.

An even more grounded possibility is that crews will require medical assistance when they are days, not hours, away from home, as suggested by the “Moon Microscope,” a portable diagnostic kit for blood analysis tests conducted in space. To put it another way, spaceflight is starting to resemble a location where regular medical care still needs to be provided rather than an expedition.

This Dragon also has a more subdued plotline: propulsion. Dragon was given a new ability by CRS-33 to assist in reboosting the station’s orbit by reducing atmospheric drag, one of those unsightly tasks that maintains the viability of the entire orbital complex.

NASA noted that before departure preparations started, Dragon made six reboosts during its docked period, including one on January 23 and five in 2025, according to Space.com. The commercial-space subtext is right there: private vehicles are performing station-keeping duties that previously seemed to be the sole domain of the government in addition to transporting cargo.

It’s difficult to overlook how “routine” has evolved into a cover for something historically odd when looking at the schedule. The capsule undocks. It splatters down. In an effort to convert weightlessness into useful information, researchers in labs located thousands of miles apart open containers and begin measuring, sequencing, and comparing. Even though it doesn’t appear dramatic at all, the true drama is in that translation.

Perhaps that is the point. With a cautious thruster pulse and a cargo list that reads like a snapshot of contemporary science—materials, biology, diagnostics, and the little engineering gimmicks that make it all possible—SpaceX Dragon will gently retreat from the ISS. If all goes well, the undocking will be seamless. If the samples are accurate, the repercussions might be anything but.