SpaceX CRS-3, also known as SpX-3,[4] was a Commercial Resupply Service mission to the International Space Station (ISS), contracted to NASA, which was launched on 18 April 2014.

[7] The launch was notionally scheduled by NASA, as of November 2012, to be no earlier than 30 September 2013, with berthing to the station occurring three days later on 2 October 2013.

The several delays — from the nominal December 2013 date that had been in place since early 2013 — have been mostly due to limited berthing windows in the ISS Visiting Vehicle schedule, and delays to both Orbital Sciences Corporation's Cygnus and SpaceX's Dragon resulted from the December 2013 cooling issue on the ISS which required several spacewalks to mitigate.

SpaceX ultimately decided to move forward and use the shielding blanket with the minor contamination problems, believing it would not impact the optical payloads being carried in the Dragon trunk.

Excess water pooled in the flame trench and dramatically surged upwards as the engines ignited, covering the rocket with grime and soot.

[23] NASA has contracted for the CRS-3 mission from SpaceX and therefore determines the primary payload, date/time of launch, and orbital parameters for the Dragon space capsule.

Among other NASA cargo, including repair parts for the ISS, the SpaceX CRS-3 mission carried a large number of experiments to the space station, including:[5] The 1,600 kg (3,500 lb) of downmass cargo [29] from the mission was returned to the Port of Long Beach via marine vessel on 20 May 2014, two days after splashdown.

The remainder of the cargo will be unloaded and transferred to NASA at the SpaceX McGregor test facility in Texas, where the Dragon capsule will be fully decommissioned and defueled.

The SpaceX team was able to receive video from cameras placed on the first-stage booster during soft landing test, as well as vehicle telemetry recorded by aircraft, but swells of 4.6–6.1 m (15–20 ft) were reported in the anticipated recovery area.