The Crew-5 mission crew sent into space by a SpaceX rocket on behalf of NASA returned to Earth on Saturday, March 11, after a five-month mission on the International Space Station, according to images from the American agency.
The "
Endurance
" capsule landed in the Gulf of Mexico shortly after 9:00 p.m. local time (02:00 GMT) off the west coast of Florida, with Japanese Koichi Wakata, Russian Anna Kikina, as well as Nicole Mann and Josh on board. Cassada from NASA.
Crew-5, launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida last October, was Koichi Wakata's fifth space mission and the first for the other members, allowing Nicole Mann to become the first Native American in space, NASA said.
Before leaving the ISS, the crew met that of Crew-6, which left on March 1 from the same place to take over.
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Less than a week earlier, a Russian Soyuz rocket lifted off from Kazakhstan to replace the MS-22 spacecraft, also Russian, which was damaged while docking with the ISS.
The three members of MS-22, an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts, were originally due to return to Earth at the end of March after a six-month mission, but will ultimately stay for almost a year.
From left to right: Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina, NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata on March 11, 2023. KEEGAN BARBER / AFP
Cooperation on the International Space Station has become one of the last areas where Washington and Moscow continue to work together since Russia invaded Ukraine just over a year ago.