Four astronauts strapped inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule have splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast, capping a six-month NASA science mission aboard the International Space Station and a daylong flight home.
The Dragon spacecraft, dubbed Endeavour, parachuted into the sea as planned just after 03:30 GMT Tuesday, following a fiery descent through Earth's atmosphere carried live by a NASA webcast.
Live thermal video imaging captured a glimpse of the capsule streaking like a meteor through the night sky over the Gulf minutes before splashdown.
Applause was heard from the flight control centre as the four main parachutes inflated above the capsule as it drifted down toward the Gulf surface, slowing its speed to about 24 kph before dropping gently into the calm sea.
It was then lifted onto a recovery ship.
Thomas Pesquet from the European Space Agency, NASA astronauts Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough, and Akihiko Hoshide of Japan were then taken out of the capsule and placed on stretchers as a precautionary measure since human bodies need to re-adjust to gravity after extended periods in space.
"It's great to be back to Planet Earth," Kimbrough was heard saying on the NASA live broadcast after Dragon splashed down.
Next stop, the Moon?
The international crew conducted thousands of experiments in orbit and helped upgrade the solar panels on the ISS during their "Crew-2" mission.
Their activities included documenting the surface of the Earth to record human-caused changes and natural events, growing Hatch chile peppers, and studying worms to better understand human health changes in space.
"Proud to have represented France once again in space! Next stop, the Moon?" Pesquet had tweeted ahead of the trip home.
Their journey back to Earth began when Endeavour undocked from the ISS at 2:05 pm (19:05 GMT), NASA announced.
It then looped around the ISS for around 90 minutes to take photographs, the first such mission since a Russian Soyuz performed a similar maneuver in 2018.
The Dragon, which flew mostly autonomously, has a small circular window at the top of its forward hatch through which the astronauts can point their cameras.
200 jours dans l’espace valaient bien 99 photos : voilà une collection des meilleures de toute la #MissionAlpha. Il en reste encore des centaines !
— Thomas Pesquet (@Thom_astro) November 8, 2021
😉
200 days in space deserved a 99 #bestof from the mission. The good news is that there are 100s left to share – more to come! pic.twitter.com/rptTSsAfeX
Bad weather
The departure was delayed a day by high winds.
Bad weather and what NASA called a "minor medical issue" have also pushed back the departure of the next set of astronauts, on the Crew-3 mission, which is now set to launch Wednesday.
Until then, the ISS will be crewed by only three astronauts – two Russians and one American.
SpaceX began providing astronauts a taxi service to the ISS in 2020, ending nine years of US reliance on Russian rockets for the journey following the end of the Space Shuttle program.
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Final challenge
The crew had to wear nappies on their journey home after a problem was detected with the craft's waste management system, forcing it to remain offline.
For around 10 hours – from the time the hatch closed at 12:40 pm (17:40 GMT) until after splashdown – the astronauts had no access to a toilet.
"Of course that's sub-optimal, but we're prepared to manage," McArthur said during a press conference ahead of the departure.
"Spaceflight is full of lots of little challenges, this is just one more that we'll encounter and take care of in our mission."
(with newswires)
