SpaceX's Crew-6 astronauts splash down after 6-month keep on ISS

4 astronauts are again on Earth, having every accomplished their first long-duration spaceflight on the Worldwide Area Station (ISS).

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Stephen Bowen and Warren “Woody” Hoburg of NASA, Sultan AlNeyadi of the UAE (United Arab Emirates) and Andrey Fedyaev of Russia’s federal house company Roscosmos, collectively SpaceX’s Crew-6, splashed down on board the corporate’s Dragon spacecraft “Endeavour” at 12:17 a.m. EDT (0417 GMT) on Monday (Sept. 4) within the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida. Of the 4, solely Bowen had flown in house earlier than.

“Once we confirmed up right here six months in the past, it was a brand new expertise for all of us,” mentioned Bowen throughout a short farewell ceremony aboard the station on Thursday (Aug. 31). “I had been to house, however I’ve by no means been on a long-duration mission. This has been a completely unimaginable expertise, and it has been an awesome alternative to observe my superb crewmates as they’ve come alongside.”

Associated: SpaceX Crew-6 astronauts say goodbye from the ISS

seven people float aboard the international space station, three of them upside down. — Seven members of the Expedition 69 crew aboard the Worldwide Area Station. Within the backside row are Andrey Fedyaev, Woody Hoburg, Steve Bowen and Sultan AlNeyadi. At high (the wrong way up) are Dmitri Petelin, Sergey Prokopyev and Frank Rubio. (Picture credit score: NASA)

Having launched on March 2, the Crew-6 astronauts’ touchdown wrapped their 186-day mission, throughout which they served as Expedition 68 and Expedition 69 flight engineers aboard the Worldwide Area Station.

That they had initially been scheduled to come back residence on Sunday morning (Sept. 3), however poor climate circumstances prolonged their keep in orbit by a day.

“It is actually been the expertise of a lifetime and an actual honor to get to spend six extremely short-feeling months dwelling and dealing aboard this unimaginable orbiting outpost,” mentioned Warren on the identical ceremony. “I feel we acquired so much accomplished. We began off with SpaceX [Commercial Resupply Services or CRS] 27 instantly, a cargo automobile stuffed with science. Later, we had the SpaceX [CRS] 28 mission, as properly we welcomed a visiting Axiom crew on board.”

“We did three spacewalks amongst our Crew-6. We berthed a Cygnus [cargo] automobile. We did a variety of upkeep, and hopefully we’re leaving the house station just a bit bit higher than we discovered it,” mentioned Warren.

The 4 astronauts departed the house station on Sunday, with the autonomous undocking of the Dragon Endeavour from the space-facing port of the Concord node at 7:05 a.m. EDT (1105 GMT).

For AlNeyadi, the flight was not solely his first, however the first long-duration expedition by an Arab and by an Emirati. He’s solely the second UAE astronaut to fly, after the transient, week-long mission to the house station by Hazza AlMansoori in 2019. The primary Arab in house, Prince Sultan Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, launched on a NASA house shuttle in 1985.

“We had a superb outreach with many individuals all over the world, so it was actually superb —particularly for my area,” mentioned AlNeyadi. “I come from a spot the place human spaceflights had been stopped for greater than 30 years, and I felt that I used to be obligated to point out what’s taking place with the station. I feel it was a small enhance in direction of spreading the keenness in our area.”

AlNeyadi was accountable for selecting the Crew-6 zero-g indicator, a small plush doll of the UAE astronaut program’s mascot “Suhail,” which additionally returned to Earth on Monday on the Dragon.

Fedyaev is just the second Russian cosmonaut and first Russian man in historical past to purposely return from space to a water landing. His trip aboard the SpaceX spacecraft was a part of a seat swap settlement between NASA and Roscosmos.

two patches for spacex missions to the international space station

NASA and SpaceX mission insignia representing Crew-6’s mission to the Worldwide Area Station. (Picture credit score: NASA/SpaceX)

SpaceX restoration boats, together with the “Megan” — which was named after NASA astronaut Megan McArthur, one of many first girls to fly on a SpaceX Dragon — had been staged close to the touchdown level and had been shortly available to assist retrieve the spacecraft and its crew from the water.

With Crew-6 again on Earth, the house station’s Expedition 69 continues with NASA astronauts Frank Rubio and Jasmin Moghbeli, European Area Company (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Japan Aerospace Exploration Company (JAXA) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin and Konstantin Borisov. Expedition 70 will start when Russia’s Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft departs the station in late September with Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio, the latter setting a brand new U.S. document for time on a single house mission at 371 days.

Crew-6 was SpaceX’s sixth crew rotation flight for NASA, seventh crewed spaceflight in help of the U.S. house company and ninth human spaceflight within the firm’s historical past. Crew-6 marked the fourth flight of Endeavour, which earlier flew the Demo-2, Crew-2 and Axiom-1 missions to and from the house station.

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