Four astronauts returned to Earth aboard a SpaceX ship . They spent 157 days in space.
The spacecraft ” Endurance ” with the four astronauts from NASA ‘s Crew-5 mission on board returned to Earth this Saturday from the International Space Station (ISS) without incident.
” Endurance ” fell at 21:02 (02:02 GMT on Sunday) in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, near Tampa off the (west) coast of Florida, NASA reported .
Splashdown of Dragon confirmed – welcome back to Earth, @AstroDuke, @Astro_Josh, @Astro_Wakata, and Anna! pic.twitter.com/LHrrqL5g6U
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 12, 2023
The astronaut recovery process
Immediately began the rescue operation of the capsule and the Crew-5 astronauts , who are the Americans Josh Cassada and Nicole Aunapu Mann, the Japanese Koichi Wakata and the Russian Anna Kikina, who spent 157 days in space.
Shannon’s recovery craft teams, including two speedboats, responded to the dive site and began the process of hoisting the Endurance onto the main deck with the astronauts inside.
Once on the main deck, the crew will be taken out of the spacecraft and receive medical checks before a helicopter ride to Tampa to board a plane to Houston.
The SpaceX ship began its journey from the ISS at 02:20 local time (07:20 GMT) on Saturday, a few minutes later than the scheduled time.
NASA delayed the return trip due to unfavorable weather conditions last Wednesday and Thursday.
Welcome home, #Crew5!
The four members of NASA’s @SpaceX Crew-5 mission are back on Earth, wrapping up a 157-day, 2,500-orbit, @ISS_Research-packed trip to the @Space_Station: https://t.co/ZQnSibuRTF pic.twitter.com/LYAndyXpxw
— NASA (@NASA) March 12, 2023
relays in space
The Crew-5 mission arrived at the space laboratory on October 6, after a journey of around 30 hours that began in Cape Canaveral (Florida), from where the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took off that propelled the “Endurance” ship to the space.
It is the first mission since these missions to the ISS began in 2020 in SpaceX ships that was commanded by a woman, the American Nicole Aunapu Mann, who is also the first member of one of the native tribes of the United States. UU. reach space.
During their six months and a few days on the ISS, Mann and his Crew-5 mates performed scientific and technical experiments and station maintenance.
Relief from Crew-5 was taken over on 3 March by the Crew-6 mission , which arrived on the ISS that day for a six-month stay.
Crew -6 is made up of Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, from the US agency, mission commander and pilot, respectively, as well as specialists Sultan Al Neyadi, from the United Arab Emirates space agency, and Andrey Fedyaev, from the Russian Roscosmos.
Crew -6 , like NASA ‘s other SpaceX missions , will pave the way “for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit and to improve life on Earth,” according to the US space agency .
NASA plans to send a manned mission to the Moon in 2024 as part of the Artemis program .
With the so-called commercial program with private companies such as Elon Musk’s, with which it signed a contract in 2014 for 2.6 billion dollars, NASA resumed trips to the ISS from US territory, something it had not done since the end of the program. ferries in 2011.