>> reporter: good morning, john. good morning, paula. after nasa ended its shuttle program, it turned to private companies for these routine trips to space. yesterday marks the first successful mission. call it one giant step for private space exploration. >> the dragon spent five days, 16 hours and five minutes attached to the international space station. >> reporter: the spacex dragon capsule left the international space station for its return to earth. these blurry images show the capsule on its way to splashdown in the pacific ocean about six hours later. it was an historic mission, one that marked a major turning point for nasa. the unmanned dragon capsule was the first private cargo ship to reach the space station. it carried up roughly 1,200 pounds of food and supplies and it's coming back to earth with about 1,400 pounds of old space station equipment and scientific samples. spacex is a dream of billionaire elan musk who made his fortune with the internet company paypal.