SpaceX Capsule Leaves ISS to Bring 4 Astronauts Back to Earth After 6 Months

 



The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying three NASA astronauts and an Italian crewmate from the ESA undocked from the ISS at 09:35pm IST.

On Friday, the fourth NASA long-duration astronaut crew that SpaceX had deployed to the International Space Station (ISS) began their journey back to Earth, capping a nearly six-month science mission.

At 12:05 PM EDT (09:35 PM IST), the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying three US NASA astronauts and an Italian crewmate from the European Space Agency separated from the International Space Station to begin a nearly five-hour return journey.

A NASA livestream of the undocking displayed live video of the capsule drifting away from the station as the two vehicles flew high over the North Atlantic.

The four astronauts were spotted strapped into the crew compartment wearing helmeted white and black spacesuits just before the spacecraft detached from the station, hovering roughly 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.

The capsule was then autonomously moved safely away from the ISS and its orbit was decreased to prepare it for a subsequent atmospheric re-entry and splashdown.

At 4:55 p.m. local time, the Crew Dragon, called Freedom, will, if all goes well, dive into the water off Florida's Atlantic coast (02:25am IST on Saturday).

Following a SpaceX launch on April 27, the Freedom crew—consisting of Kjell Lindgren, 49; Jessica Watkins, 34; Bob Hines, 47; and Samantha Cristoferetti, 45—arrived at the station. Watkins made history by becoming the first African-American woman to fly a lengthy mission for the ISS.

The fourth full-fledged long-duration crew to be carried to the ISS by SpaceX since the commercial rocket business founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk began transporting NASA workers in May 2020, that crew was known as "Crew-4."

They left the station a week after their replacement crew, Crew-5, which included the first Native American woman to be taken into orbit, a Russian cosmonaut, a Japanese astronaut, and two other NASA crew members, arrived.

With two other Russians and an American who travelled to the ISS on the same Soyuz flight in September, Crew-5 is still present on the station for the time being. Sergey Prokopyev, one of the cosmonauts, took over as commander of the ISS from Cristoferetti of the European Space Agency 
before Crew-4's departure.

Since 2000, the ISS, which is the size of a football field, has been constantly manned by a US-Russian cooperation that also includes Canada, Japan, and 11 European nations.

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