The four crew members of NASA and SpaceX's seventh commercial space mission landed on the coast of Pensacola (Florida) this Tuesday at 5:48 (9:48 GMT), after a 19.5-hour journey from the International Space Station (ISS). ) more than six months have passed.
The crew of the just-landed spacecraft consisted of NASA astronaut Jasmine Mokbeli; Andreas Mogensen, at the European Space Agency (ESA); Satoshi Furukawa from Java, Japan and Konstantin Borisov from Roscosmos, Russia are back aboard the SpaceX Dragon capsule, Endurance.
The capsule carrying the astronauts entered Earth's atmosphere at 9:30 GMT and five minutes before splashdown, it made a stable landing using four giant parachutes, which separated from the capsule upon reaching the ocean.
Dragon's Splashdown Confirmed – Welcome back to Earth, @AstroJaws, @Astro_Andreas, @astro_satoshiAnd Kostya! pic.twitter.com/iugZ6Awwvn
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 12, 2024
The Megane SpaceX Dragon recovery ship approaches the capsule.
According to NASA, the process of the spacecraft's controlled impact with the ocean surface was carried out in “very stable conditions”, with proper operation of safety measures to protect against the decompression process and was stable. Weather conditions in which the operation was carried out.
For these operations, the U.S. Coast Guard, in collaboration with SpaceX and NASA, has established a safety zone to ensure public safety and the safety of those participating in rescue operations and the crew aboard the returning spacecraft.
During the six months they spent at the orbiting laboratory, which was launched on August 27, 2023, they carried out hundreds of experiments, technical tests and station maintenance tasks.
Crew-7 is being developed within the framework of NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP), through which the US agency sends private space companies such as SpaceX to transport crews and cargo to the ISS, as well as from other low-Earth missions. Around the circular path.
It was the first mission in which every seat on the spacecraft, built mainly in Denmark, was occupied by a different country, something NASA always includes two or three of its SpaceX taxi planes.
Four crew members were released last Sunday by the SpaceX Crew-8 commercial mission, which includes NASA astronauts Matthew Dominique, Michael Barrett and Jeanette Epps, and astronaut Alexander Grebenkin.
This is the eighth orbital flight for a new crew, and the ninth manned spaceflight for the Commercial Crew Program (CCP) to the ISS aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft.
These commercial flights began in 2020 and allowed the United States to send astronauts from American soil again after the cancellation of the Space Shuttle program in 2011.
