Four space station astronauts successfully land on Earth during a breathtaking pre-dawn descent.
Closing out a six-month stay at the International Space Station, a three-man, one-woman crew plunged back to Earth early Tuesday, streaking across the heartland of America like a blazing meteor as their Crew Dragon capsule descended to a Gulf of Mexico splashdown.
Suspended beneath four huge parachutes, the Crew Dragon “Endurance” settled to a gentle walking pace touchdown south of Pensacola, Florida, at 5:47 a.m. EDT, closing out a 199-day mission spanning 3,184 orbits and 84.4 million miles.
NASA / SpaceX
A team from SpaceX situated in the vicinity carefully transported the capsule and its crew. The team consisted of commander Jasmin Moghbeli, astronaut Andreas Mogensen from the European Space Agency, flyer Satoshi Furukawa from Japan, and cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov. The company’s recovery ship Megan was waiting on the aft deck and the team quickly opened the side hatch upon arrival.
undocked from the International Space Station.
At an altitude of 260 miles over the Indian Ocean, the team observed a 13.5-minute automated firing of the thrusters beginning at 4:56 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. This slowed the spacecraft down by approximately 212 mph and positioned it deeper in the atmosphere for a descent towards the Gulf of Mexico.
As it reentered the noticeable atmosphere, the Crew Dragon followed a path from northwest to southeast over the United States, quickly decelerating in a blazing mass of intensely heated air.
Observers positioned along a route spanning from Nebraska to central Kansas, northeastern Oklahoma, central Arkansas, and Mississippi had an opportunity to witness the spacecraft’s return as it zoomed towards Earth.
Following its journey over the panhandle of Florida, the spacecraft’s speed decreased to a few hundred miles per hour as small drogue parachutes were deployed to provide stability. This was followed by the deployment of four main chutes, allowing the Crew Dragon to safely descend and land in the calm winds and mild seas.
NASA/SpaceX
Similar to other instances of returning with the Crew Dragon, the crew was anticipated to be transported to the shore via helicopter and then board a waiting NASA aircraft for the journey back to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Their replacements onboard the space station were Crew 8 commander Matthew Dominick, co-pilot Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps, and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, together with Soyuz crewmates Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub, and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara.
In September, Kononenko and Chub were sent into space on the Soyuz MS-24/70S spacecraft. They are currently halfway through a mission lasting a year. O’Hara, on the other hand, is finishing up a more standard six-month tour of duty.
On March 21st, the Soyuz MS-25/71S spaceship will transport cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, guest cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya from Belarus, and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson to the space station. Novitskiy, Vasilevskaya, and O’Hara will use the same Soyuz spacecraft that brought Kononenko, Chub, and O’Hara to the station last year to return to Earth on April 2nd.
Kononenko, Chub, and Dyson will utilize the Soyuz spacecraft provided by Novitskiy for their return journey in September.
On Sunday, Mogensen, the previous leader of Expedition 70, handed over control of the station to Kononenko in a change-of-command event. Kononenko now holds the record for the highest amount of time spent in space, with a cumulative total of 916 days from his four missions. As of Tuesday, he had reached this milestone.
NASA/SpaceX
On Sunday, during a ceremony to change command, Mogensen, who previously led Expedition 70, handed over control of the station to Kononenko. Kononenko now holds the record for the most total time spent in space on his four missions, which as of Tuesday, is 916 days.
“At the ceremony, Mogensen shared that during my initial mission in 2015, I was fortunate enough to accompany Gennady Padalka, who had achieved a record of 878 days in space for a single individual flying multiple flights at the time.”
“You have now exceeded that,” he told Kononenko, “and you are making excellent progress towards spending 1,000 days in space, which is a remarkable accomplishment. There is no one more knowledgeable than you when it comes to the International Space Station. Therefore, I will be leaving it in undoubtedly capable hands.”
On June 4, Kononenko will have been in space for more than three years, reaching a milestone of 1,000 days. Upon his return to Earth, he will have spent a total of over three years in space.
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Source: cbsnews.com