SpaceX brings four astronauts home after 8 months in space, and the return was flawless
AI-summarised brief · reviewed before publication
Four Crew‑12 astronauts returned to Earth after a 237‑day stint aboard the International Space Station, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean 50 miles west of Los Angeles at 11:34 a.m. ET on Thursday. The crew—NASA’s Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA’s Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos’s Andrey Fedyaev—undocked from the Harmony module on Wednesday at 8:05 a.m. ET, began a 27.5‑hour return, and executed a nine‑minute deorbit burn at 10:46 a.m. ET. Dragon’s parachutes deployed at roughly 18,000 feet, slowing the capsule to about 15 mph before splashdown. SpaceX recovery boats secured the vehicle, and flight surgeons performed initial medical checks before the crew was hoisted aboard the recovery ship and later ferried to Johnson Space Center for rehabilitation. The mission logged 3,792 orbits, nearly 101 million miles, and four spacewalks, marking Meir’s 440 cumulative days in space and first flights for Hathaway and Adenot.
💡 Why It Matters
- · The flawless return validates SpaceX’s rapid turnaround capability, keeping the ISS crew rotation schedule on track while freeing the docking port for the imminent CRS‑35 cargo mission.
