The SpaceX Dragon carrying four Crew-10 members fires its engines after undocking from the International Space Station’s forward port to begin its descent toward Earth. Photo from NASA website
SAN DIEGO – Four space travelers safely splashed down off the coast of San Diego Saturday after completing a mission aboard the International Space Station.
NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Takuya Onishi of Japan and Kirill Peskov of Russia splashed down in a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft at 8:33 a.m. Saturday, according to NASA.
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NASA said they were the “first Commercial Crew mission to splash down off the California coast.”
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 members (from left) Kirill Peskov of Roscosmos, NASA astronauts Nichole Ayers and Anne McClain, and Takuya Onishi are pictured training inside a Dragon mockup crew vehicle at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California. Photo from NASA website
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Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president and chief operating officer, welcomed the quartet “back to the beautiful blue planet!”
“Hope your ride was comfortable,” she wrote on X.
SpaceX personnel were working to help the four out of the capsule, allowing them to take their first breath of fresh air in five months. McClain was the first was to leave the craft, according to a video feed. She was followed by Ayers, Onishi and Peskov.
The four traveled to the ISS in March to relieve two test pilots of Boeing’s Starliner aircraft who had been stuck there for several months after a malfunction. They carried out most of their 148-day mission conducting research. During that time, they also completed 2,300 orbits around Earth.
After undergoing a medical evaluation, the crew will be flown on a NASA plane to Houston to be reunited with their families. (With CNS report)
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