SpaceX Crew-1 astronauts return to Earth in uncommon hour of darkness splashdown
The Crew Dragon astronauts on the restoration ship quickly after landing in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday.
Invoice Ingalls/NASA
SpaceX returned four astronauts to Earth early Sunday morning after a six-month cease on the Worldwide Residence Situation, splashing them down in the Gulf of Mexico. It used to be the most important hour of darkness US splashdown since Apollo 8 in 1968.
The Crew-1 astronauts, three American and one Japanese, landed end to Panama City, Florida, factual sooner than 3 a.m. ET. It used to be the second time humans possess returned to Earth on a SpaceX Crew Dragon tablet.
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“We welcome you attend to planet Earth and thanks for flying SpaceX,” SpaceX’s Mission Bewitch an eye on radioed moments after splashdown. “For those of you enrolled in our frequent flyer program, you possess earned 68 million miles on this voyage.”
“We’ll prefer those miles,” spacecraft commander Col. Mike Hopkins talked about moments after landing. “Are they transferrable?”
The Crew Dragon tablet, named Resilience, launched in November with NASA astronauts Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker on board — alongside with Soichi Noguchi of Japan’s dwelling company, JAXA. The undocking leaves seven astronauts at the ISS, for the explanation that Crew-2 mission arrived on the Endeavour spacecraft earlier in the week.
“All four crew contributors are in wide form and massive spirits and doing if truth be told properly,” Holly Ridings, NASA’s chief flight director, talked about at a news convention after the landing.
The astronauts’ 167-day cease aboard the ISS used to be the longest for a crew launching from the US, breaking the outdated file of 84 days dwelling by Skylab astronauts in 1974.
The last predawn splashdown happened on Dec. 27, 1968, when Apollo 8, the most important crewed flight to the moon, landed in the Pacific Ocean end to Hawaii.