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The third long-range team of astronauts launched by SpaceX to NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) safely left orbit early Thursday to begin its descent back to Earth, completing a six-month scientific mission.
A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying three NASA astronauts from the United States and a German astronaut from the European Space Agency disembarked from the ISS shortly after 1 a.m. EDT (0500 GMT) to embark on a return flight expected to continue. about 11 p.m.
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A live video showing the capsule moving away from the station was shown on a NASA webcast.
Dressed in white and black helmet suits, the four astronauts were spotted tied up in the crew cabin shortly before the spacecraft separated from the space station, orbiting about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth. Then several short rocket launches autonomously pushed the capsule safely out of the ISS.
If all goes well, the Crew Dragon, called Endurance, will parachute into the sea off the coast of Florida at 12:43 EDT on Friday (04:43 GMT).
The Endurance crew, consisting of American astronauts Tom Marshburn, 61, Raja Chari, 44, and Kayla Baron, 34, along with ESA crew colleague Matthias Maurer, 52, arrived at the space station on November 11.
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Their departure came about a week after meeting their replacement crew aboard the station, also now home to three Russian astronauts on a long-term mission. One of these astronauts, Oleg Artemiev, took command of the ISS from Marshburn in a handover before disembarking on Thursday, NASA said.
Earlier in April, a separate all-private crew of astronauts launched from SpaceX to the space station under a contract with Houston-based Axiom Space left the orbital lab for two weeks in orbit.
The NASA-ESA team flying home on Thursday was officially named “Crew 3”, the third full-fledged group of long-lasting astronauts, which SpaceX took to the space station for the US space agency.
They will carry about 550 pounds of cargo with them on their flight back to Earth.
SpaceX, a California-based company founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, a billionaire and CEO of electric car maker Tesla Inc, who recently struck a deal to buy social media platform Twitter, has launched a total of seven manned spaceflights. in the last two years. (Report by Steve Gorman of Los Angeles; Edited by Jacqueline Wong and Simon Cameron-Moore)
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