After a six-month stay on the International Space Station, four astronauts have returned to Earth
Four astronauts made their first landing on Earth on Tuesday morning, March 12th, in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida, US, following more than six months in orbit on the International Space Station (ISS), according to AFP.
After all four of the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule’s brake parachutes opened, as shown by a NASA thermal camera, the crew made a splashdown off the coast of Pensacola at 05:47 local time (09:47 GMT).
NASA’s Crew-7 mission, headed by first-time American astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) at the end of August in the same capsule that went back to Earth.
Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borissov, Japanese Satoshi Furukawa, and Danish Andreas Mogensen were also on the flight.
The spacecraft was recovered from the sea in less than 30 minutes, following an 18 and a half-hour flight from the International Space Station.
One of the few areas of cooperation that the US and Russian space agencies have managed to sustain is their cooperation on the International Space Station (ISS), despite diplomatic difficulties that have existed between Washington and Moscow since the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
Astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli thanked international cooperation in her farewell speech on Sunday on board the International Space Station (ISS), which was made possible by the end of the Cold War in the 1990s. „It’s proof of what we can achieve when we work together,” she stated.
The six-month mission involved a range of scientific investigations by the crew, including the effects of microgravity, which hastens aging, on liver regeneration.
This is SpaceX, the firm founded by billionaire Elon Musk, and the seventh mission in the crew’s regular ISS cycle for NASA. On March 5, the eighth crew—which replaced SpaceX in the mission—arrived at the International Space Station.
After the US space shuttle program was discontinued in 2011, NASA is paying SpaceX for the service, which has allowed it to transport personnel to the International Space Station and lessen its reliance on Russia.
Photos source: ©Joel Kowsky HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
