SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endurance splashed down off the coast of Tampa early this morning, per NASA, bringing crew members safely again to Earth after virtually six months in orbit following a mission to the Worldwide House Station that received off to a terrifying begin final fall.
On November 11, 2021, Endurance launched from the Kennedy House Middle with Crew-3 aboard, SpaceX’s third operational Industrial Crew mission to the ISS, which included astronauts Raja Chari, Kayla Barron, Tom Marshburn and Matthias Maurer. They arrived on the station with over 400 kilos of provides and {hardware}, 150 kilos of which consisted of analysis experiments to be performed within the orbital labratory.
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Just some days later, on November 15, particles generated by a damaging Russian Anti-Satellite tv for pc (ASAT) take a look at handed dangerously near the ISS, forcing crew members to hunt shelter aboard their spacecrafts. “I’m outraged by this irresponsible and destabilizing motion,” NASA administrator Invoice Nelson mentioned in a statement on the time. “With its lengthy and storied historical past in human spaceflight, it’s unthinkable that Russia would endanger not solely the American and worldwide accomplice astronauts on the ISS, but additionally their very own cosmonauts.”
Luckily, the Endurance‘s splash down went off with out a hitch this morning, only some days after SpaceX’s Dragon Freedom, which carried its Crew-4, arrived on the house station, making a direct handover attainable.
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NASA documented the Endurance‘s mesmerizing return on its Twitter account.
And… splashdown! Dragon has safely made it house with valuable cargo aboard: 4 #Crew3 astronauts!
Now they watch for the restoration car, which is called after Shannon Walker, mission specialist for the primary crewed @SpaceX mission to the @Space_Station: pic.twitter.com/VDDXdsxkbH— NASA (@NASA) May 6, 2022
And posted some celebratory images of the crew’s disembarkation.
The #Crew3 mission is formally full!
After launching from Kennedy on Nov. 10, 2021, @SpaceX‘s Dragon Endurance splashed down off the coast of Florida at this time at 12:43am ET, bringing @Astro_Raja, @AstroMarshburn, Kayla Barron, and @Astro_Matthias house: https://t.co/wGNaM6g04x pic.twitter.com/48fiA9sNca— NASA’s Kennedy House Middle (@NASAKennedy) May 6, 2022
SpaceX plans to launch its subsequent manned flight to the ISS in September of 2022.
Supply: Entrepreneur