SpaceX to reuse Dragon spacecraft for ISS cargo missionWashington, Oct 29 (AZINS) US space firm SpaceX's next cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS), scheduled to launch in December, will employ a preflown Dragon capsule, the media reported.

The Dragon cargo spacecraft, which was flown on SpaceX's sixth commercial resupply mission to station for NASA, will launch the CRS-13 resupply mission flight on a Falcon 9 rocket.

The lift-off will also mark the return to service of Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, which has been out of service since September 2016 when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded there during a routine prelaunch test, reported space.com.

SpaceX has been making contracted ISS resupply runs for NASA using Dragon and the Falcon 9 for five years.

The upcoming launch will be the 13th such mission for the company.

The CRS-13 mission will carry a number of interesting payloads, including a NASA instrument designed to measure how much energy the sun delivers to Earth and a machine that will produce ZBLAN optical fiber on orbit, the report said.

The Dragon cargo spacecraft comes back to Earth for soft, parachute-aided ocean splashdowns.