Four astronauts returned to Earth on Saturday after husing to the International Space Station five months ago to ease the stuck test pilot of Boeing’s Starliner.
Their SpaceX capsules parachute into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California, the day after they left Orbital Lab.
“Welcome” SpaceX Mission Control has been turned into radio.
Splashing was Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers from NASA, Takamichi from Onishi in Japan, and Kirill Peskov from Russia. They launched in March as an alternative to the two NASA astronauts assigned to Starliner’s failed demonstrations.
The Starliner malfunction kept Butch Willmore and Snie Williams on the space station for more than nine months rather than a week. NASA ordered Boeing’s new crew capsule to return to the sky and switched the pair to SpaceX. They left shortly after McClain and her crew arrived to take their place. Wilmore then retired from NASA.
Before leaving the space station on Friday, McClain noted people’s struggles and “a fierce era on Earth.”
“Our mission, ours, wants to remind people of what they can do when they work together and explore together,” she said.
McLain looked forward to “doing nothing for a few days” after returning to Houston. Her crew wish list height: a hot shower and a juicy burger.
SpaceX’s third Pacific splashdown, the first for NASA crew in 50 years. Elon Musk’s company switched capsule returns from Florida to California’s coast earlier this year, reducing the risk of debris falling into densely populated areas. The back-to-back private crew was the first to experience Pacific homecoming.
The last time NASA astronauts returned to the Pacific Ocean from space was on the 1975 Apollo Soyuz Mission, the Apollo Soyuz Mission, a meeting between Americans and Soviets in orbit.
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The Associated Press School of Health Sciences is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institution’s Department of Science and Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. AP is solely responsible for all content.
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