Astronauts return to Earth with SpaceX after 5 months on the International Space Station

Four astronauts returned to Earth on Saturday after hustling to the International Space Station 5 months in the past to alleviate the stuck test pilots of Boeing’s Starliner.

Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Pacific off the Southern California coast a day after departing the orbiting lab.

“Welcome home,” SpaceX Mission Control radioed.

Splashing down have been NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov. They launched in March as replacements for the 2 NASA astronauts assigned to Starliner’s botched demo.

Starliner malfunctions stored Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on the house station for greater than 9 months as an alternative of every week. NASA ordered Boeing’s new crew capsule to return empty and switched the pair to SpaceX. They left quickly after McClain and her crew arrived to take their locations. Wilmore has since retired from NASA.

Before leaving the house station on Friday, McClain made observe of “some tumultuous times on Earth” with folks struggling.

“We want this mission, our mission, to be a reminder of what people can do when we work together, when we explore together,” she mentioned.

McClain regarded ahead to “doing nothing for a couple of days” as soon as again house in Houston. High on her crewmates’ want checklist: scorching showers and juicy burgers.

It was SpaceX’s third Pacific splashdown with folks on board, however the first for a NASA crew in 50 years. Elon Musk’s firm switched capsule returns from Florida to California’s coast earlier this 12 months to cut back the chance of particles falling on populated areas. Back-to-back personal crews have been the primary to expertise Pacific homecomings.

The final time NASA astronauts returned to the Pacific from house was in the course of the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission, a détente meet-up of Americans and Soviets in orbit.

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