SpaceX returns 4 astronauts to Earth

The first six-month rotation of an International Space Station crew to be carried up and returned to Earth by commercial partner SpaceX ended in the early morning hours Sunday (May 2, 2021). The Crew-1 team of NASA Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and, Shannon Walker plus Soichi Noguchi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, left on board the Crew Dragon capsule named Resilience late Saturday from the station for its 6-1/2-hour trip ending with a 2:56 a.m. splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida near Panama City. The capsule its target within a minute of the planned touchdown. Responding ships were on hand surrounding the capsule with SpaceX recovery vessel Go Navigator on hand soon after to hoist it out of the water. The hatch opened about 45 minutes after splashdown. The four astronauts left the capsule and were taken for additional medical checks. They were placed on stretchers, which is normal for those returning to Earth’s gravity after long periods in space. The quartet were flown by helicopter to Panama City and were headed to Johnston Space Center for a reunion with their families. NASA was able to recover the two drogue and four main parachutes as well. The crew got into the vehicle Saturday evening to leave behind seven other members of the ISS expedition, leaving about four days later than originally planned because of weather-related delays. The return comes 168 days in space for the four-person crew, the longest ever for a crew of a U.S. spacecraft, doubling the 84 days in space by the Skylab 4 crew of 1974. The four from Crew-1 were joined on the ISS last Saturday by four passengers of the Crew-2 mission, which flew up to the station on board the SpaceX Crew Dragon named Endeavour. It was the first time two commercial crew capsules had been at the station at the same time. The 11 people on the station at the same time isn’t the most ever for the ISS, which has on several occasions during the space shuttle era reached a population of 13.