SpaceX’s Crew-5 mission safely returns to Earth after 5 months in house

SpaceX’s Crew-5 mission has safely returned to Earth. On Saturday night, the corporate’s “Endurance” Dragon spacecraft splashed down off the coast of Florida following a five-month keep on the Worldwide House Station. The capsule was carrying NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann, Japan’s Koichi Wakata and Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina.

The 4 spent 157 days in orbit throughout an ISS rotation that was one for the historical past books. As , the Crew-5 mission noticed Mann, a member of the Wailaki individuals, turn out to be the . It was additionally the primary time a Russian cosmonaut flew aboard a personal American spacecraft, a milestone made attainable after NASA and Roscosmos final 12 months amid growing US and Russian tensions as a result of struggle in Ukraine.

For Wakata, the flight was his fifth return from house, a Japanese document. The mission additionally marked the second orbital journey for Endurance after the capsule efficiently carried the crew again to Earth final fall. The spacecraft will now return to SpaceX’s Dragon Lair facility in Florida for security checks and refurbishment forward of its subsequent flight.

Not on the flight was NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, who flew to the ISS on MS-22, the Russian Soyuz spacecraft that late final 12 months following an obvious micrometeoroid strike. The Endurance crew briefly retrofitted their trip to hold Rubio in case of an emergency evacuation from the ISS after Roscomos decided MS-22 may solely safely transport two individuals. They later eliminated these modifications after Russia despatched a alternative Soyuz spacecraft to convey Rubio and cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin again to Earth.