The Crew Dragon Endurance capsule has landed successfully: thus ending after approximately 6 months in space the Crew-7 mission composed of the European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, the American Jasmin Moghbeli of NASA, Satoshi Furukawa of the agency Japanese spaceman Jaxa and cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
The landing took place at 10.47am Italian time off the coast of Florida with the capsule made by SpaceX which, after a journey of around 19 hours, brought the four astronauts back to Earth who spent around 6 months on the International Space Station carrying out around 200 experiments scientific.
For the Danish Mogensen it was the second experience on the ISS during which he held the role of commander for the first time for 166 days, the longest period for a European astronaut.
Shortly before leaving the Space Station Mogensen handed over command to the Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and during the ceremony the Dane underlined the long experience of the Russian, commander of the ISS for the third time:
“On my first mission in 2015 – said Mogensen – I had the pleasure of flying with Gennady Padalka, who at the time set the record of 878 days in space.
Now you've surpassed that and are about to reach 1,000 days in space, an incredible achievement."
“No one is more expert than you – added Mogensen – I think I will leave the ISS in the best possible hands”.
Just a few weeks ago Kononenko surpassed Padalka's record for presence in space and on June 5th he will exceed 1000 days in space.
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