After 199 days of scientific research on the International Space Station, four astronauts from NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 have safely returned to Earth.
On Monday, the astronauts landed in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida, completing NASA’s second long-duration commercial crew mission to the International Space Station.
NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet splashed down off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, at 10:33 p.m. EST.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelso commented on the splashdown, saying, “Shane, Megan, Aki, and Thomas have safely returned to Earth following another successful, record-breaking long-duration mission to the International Space Station. Congratulations to the NASA and SpaceX crews who worked so hard to make the splashdown a success. NASA’s Commercial Crew Program continues to provide safe and dependable transportation to and from the space station for essential science and maintenance.”
The Crew-2 mission took out from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 23 on a Falcon 9 rocket. On April 24, approximately 24 hours after liftoff, the Crew Dragon Endeavour docked to the Harmony module’s forward port of the space station.
During their mission, Kimbrough, McArthur, Hoshide, and Pesquet covered 84,653,119 statute miles, spent 198 days aboard the space station, and completed 3,194 orbits around the Earth.
The astronauts participated in a variety of science and maintenance duties, scientific inquiries, and technology demonstrations during their mission. They even went on four spacewalks and participated in a number of public outreach events while aboard the orbiting laboratory. Among many other scientific pursuits, they researched how gaseous flames behave in microgravity, grew hatch green chiles in the station’s Plant Habitat Facility, installed free-flying robotic assistants, and even donned virtual reality goggles to test new ways of exercising in space.
The astronauts took hundreds of photos of Earth as part of the Crew Earth Observation research, which is one of the longest-running investigations aboard the space station and helps track natural disasters and changes to our home planet.
Four spacewalks were also undertaken by Kimbrough, Hoshide, and Pesquet to install, deploy, or otherwise prepare for the installation of ISS Roll-out Solar Arrays. This raised Kimbrough’s, Hoshide’s, and Pesquet’s total number of spacewalks to nine, four, and six, respectively.
The splashdown of Crew-2 comes only days before NASA’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission, which is set to launch on Wednesday.
