United States: Four astronauts from the International Space Station (ISS) made a successful splashdown landing in their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule off the Florida coast. The astronauts have successfully completed their six-month space mission.
The astronauts, part of NASA and SpaceX’s Crew-6 mission, left the space station at 7:05 am ET on September 4, 2023. They spent the day on the 13-foot-wide Crew Dragon as it navigated Earth’s orbit towards its landing site off Jacksonville, Florida. They reportedly landed there after midnight.
Watch Crew-6 exit Dragon after safely splashing down at 12:17 a.m. ET https://t.co/S0YHHBOrTK
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 4, 2023
“Dragon splashes down off the coast of Florida with the Crew-6 astronauts, completing Dragon’s sixth long-duration mission to the space station,” SpaceX shared on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Prior to their departure from the space station, NASA was keeping a close watch on the effects of Hurricane Idalia. The hurricane caused significant damage in northern Florida, and it continued its path through southern Georgia and the Carolinas.
The crew included NASA’s Mr. Stephen Bowen and Mr. Warren Hoburg, Mr. Sultan Alneyadi, an astronaut from the United Arab Emirates, and Russian cosmonaut Mr. Andrey Fedyaev.
“It has been an honor and the thrill of a lifetime to serve on this mission. space station is a treasure. I’m going to miss this place,” Mr. Hoburg wrote on X before departure.
After launching to the station in March 2023, the group spent six months on board the orbiting laboratory. During the past week, the Crew-6 astronauts facilitated the transition to the Crew-7 team, who arrived at the space station on August 27, 2023.
During their stay on the ISS, the crew engaged in over 200 scientific and technical experiments.
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