On Thursday, NASA’s third long-duration astronaut team to the International Space Station (ISS) departed the station to return to Earth (May 5). These astronauts were on a six-month mission and were transported to the International Space Station by SpaceX when it began.
At 1:20 a.m. EDT (0520 GMT), the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying three US NASA astronauts and a German astronaut from the European Space Agency undocked from the International Space Station to begin a 23-hour return flight.
The capsule was seen drifting away from the ISS on live video.
The four astronauts were seen strapped into the crew cabin wearing helmeted white and black spacesuits shortly before the spacecraft separated from the space station, orbiting some 250 miles (400 kilometres) above the Earth.
The capsule was then safely pushed clear of the ISS and its orbit was lowered to line up the spacecraft for later atmospheric reentry and splashdown with a series of brief rocket thrusts.
The Crew Dragon craft, dubbed Endurance, will parachute into the sea off the coast of Florida at 12:43 a.m. EDT (0443 GMT) on Friday if everything goes according to plan (May 6).
On November 11, the Endurance crew, which included American astronauts Tom Marshburn, 61, Raja Chari, 44, and Kayla Barron, 34, and ESA crewmate Matthias Maurer, 52, arrived at the space station.
They left a week after welcoming their replacement team aboard the station, which is also home to three Russian cosmonauts on a long-term mission. Oleg Artemyev, one of those cosmonauts, took command of the ISS from Marshburn in a handover before Thursday’s undocking, according to NASA.
