SpaceX capsule returns crew of 4 from space station mission
- Spacecraft splashes down off Florida’s Gulf coast after five-month science mission following nine-hour flight from International Space Station
- Mission was SpaceX’s sixth crewed flight for Nasa since its Crew Dragon spacecraft first flew humans in May 2020
Four crew members aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule splashed down off Florida’s Gulf coast on Saturday, returning safely from a five-month science mission on the International Space Station.
The SpaceX capsule, dubbed Endurance, parachuted into waters off the coast of Tampa just after 9pm local time carrying two Nasa astronauts, a Japanese astronaut and one Russian cosmonaut after a roughly nine-hour flight from the orbital research lab, a Nasa-SpaceX webcast showed.
The Crew-5 team launched from Florida on October 6 to conduct routine science aboard the station. It included cosmonaut Anna Kikina, 38, who became the first Russian to fly on an American spacecraft in 20 years, and Nasa flight commander Nicole Aunapu Mann, 45, the first Native American woman sent into orbit.
Nasa pilot Josh Cassada, 49, and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, 59, a veteran of four previous space flights, were also aboard. Wakata now has logged more than 500 days in space over five missions dating back to Nasa’s shuttle era.
“That was one heck of a ride,” Mann radioed moments after splashdown. “We’re happy to be home.”
Mann, a member of Northern California’s Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, said she could not wait to feel the wind on her face, smell fresh grass and enjoy some delicious Earth food.
Wakata craved sushi, while Kikina yearned to drink hot tea “from [a] real cup, not from plastic bag”.