SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk who wanted to reduce space transportation costs as well as enable the human habitation of Mars. First in development was the Falcon rocket which became the first commercial rocket to travel into space successfully, followed by the Dragon spacecraft which was designed for reusability thereby reducing the costs of space travel. The first generation of Dragon spacecraft were launched between 2010 and 2020. These reusable spacecraft were designed to transport cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program. 

This Dragon spacecraft was the 13th and final first-generation Dragon cargo spacecraft manufactured by SpaceX, and it traveled to space twice as part of the CRS-12 and CRS-17 missions to the ISS. CRS-12 launched on August 14, 2017, and delivered over 6,000 pounds of supplies and experiments, including the CREAM (Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass) instrument designed to study cosmic rays and their properties. CRS-17, which launched on May 4, 2019, carried additional supplies and experiments and included instruments to ISS including the OCO-3 (Orbiting Carbon Observatory-3), an instrument designed to monitor carbon dioxide levels in the Earth's atmosphere.