SpaceX capsule brings four astronauts home from six-month mission
The third long-duration astronaut team launched by SpaceX to the International Space Station (ISS) has safely returned to Earth, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida to end months of orbital research ranging from space-grown chillies to robots.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying three American NASA astronauts and a European Space Agency (ESA) crewmate from Germany parachuted into calm seas in darkness at the conclusion of a 23-hour-plus autonomous flight home from the ISS.
The splashdown, at about 12:45am local time (04:45 GMT) on Friday, was carried live by a joint NASA-SpaceX webcast.
The Endurance crew, which began its stay in orbit on November 11, consisted of American spaceflight veteran Tom Marshburn, 61, and three first-time astronauts – NASA’s Raja Chari, 44, and Kayla Barron, 34, and their ESA colleague Matthias Maurer, 52.
Camera shots from inside the crew compartment showed the astronauts strapped into their seats, garbed in helmeted white-and-black spacesuits.
It was expected to take splashdown-response teams about an hour to reach the capsule bobbing in the water, hoist it onto the deck of a recovery vessel and open the hatch to let the astronauts out for their first breath of fresh air in nearly six months.
The return from orbit followed a fiery re-entry plunge through Earth’s atmosphere generating frictional heat that sent temperatures outside the capsule soaring to 1,930C (3,500F).
Two sets of parachutes billowed open above the capsule in the final stage of descent, slowing its fall to about 24km/h (15mph) before the craft hit the water off the coast of Tampa, Florida.
“It’s the end of a six-month mission, but I think the space dream lives on,” Maurer said.
“Welcome home,” SpaceX Mission Control radioed at splashdown. “Thanks for flying SpaceX.”
