Home Sweet Home.
After spending almost six months in space, three American astronauts and a German returned to Earth on Friday aboard a SpaceX capsule, which landed off the coast of Florida.
Detached from the International Space Station (ISS), the Dragon capsule, which carried Americans Kayla Barron, Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn, as well as European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer, touched sea at 2:43 a.m. French after a journey of more than 23 hours.
“On behalf of the entire SpaceX team, welcome home,” said an official from the American company.
Splashdown of Dragon confirmed – welcome back to Earth, @Astro_Raja, @astroMarshburn, @astro_matthias, and @astro_kayla!
pic.twitter.com/zgoX2CITQh
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 6, 2022
This crew, called Crew-3, spent its last days aboard the ISS carrying out the handover with Crew-4, also made up of four astronauts (three Americans and one Italian).
The latter had taken off from Florida about a week ago, also with SpaceX.
Also currently on board the ISS are three Russians, who arrived for their departure with a Russian Soyuz rocket.
It was the sixth landing of a manned Dragon capsule for SpaceX, which now regularly transports astronauts to the ISS on behalf of NASA.
“New discoveries made in space”
Matthias Maurer is the twelfth German to have flown into orbit.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz wished him on Twitter "a safe journey home", highlighting his work "and all the new discoveries made in space".
VIDEO.
Jessica Watkins, first black woman to join the International Space Station
Members of Crew-3 performed multiple scientific experiments.
For example, they studied how cement hardens in weightlessness -- which could be of importance for future constructions, for example on the Moon.
And carried out the second harvest of peppers on board the station.
During their stay, they also received a visit from a private mission, including three businessmen, who had paid tens of millions of dollars each to spend two weeks aboard the ISS - still transported by SpaceX .
