The four astronauts, who spent five months on the International Space Station (ISS), returned to Earth on Saturday aboard SpaceX’s Endurance spacecraft, NASA announced.
“The Endurance crashed at 9:02 p.m. (2:02 a.m. today in Lisbon) in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, near Tampa, off the coast of Florida” (southeast), reported the United States Aeronautics and Space Administration. (POT). .
The SpaceX spacecraft left the ISS at 02:20 a.m. (07:20 a.m. Saturday in Lisbon), after NASA postponed the return on Wednesday and Thursday due to unfavorable weather conditions.
This was the first mission, since the SpaceX spacecraft began guaranteeing trips to the ISS in 2020, to be commanded by a woman, the American Nicole Aunapu Mann, who is also the first member of a Native American tribe. in the space.
The team, which also included the American Josh Cassada, the Japanese Koichi Wakata and the Russian Anna Kikina, arrived at the ISS on October 6, where they spent 157 days carrying out scientific-technical experiments and maintenance operations.
Koichi Wakata has spent more than 500 days in space, on five missions dating back to the era of the shuttle program, abandoned by NASA in 2011.
Before leaving the ISS, the four astronauts met with the Crew-6 mission, made up of the Americans Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, mission commander and pilot, respectively, by Al Neyadi, from the United Arab Emirates, and by the Russian Andrey Fedyaev. . This new mission arrived at the ISS on March 3.
Cooperation on the ISS is one of the last areas in which Washington and Moscow continue to work together since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine just over a year ago.
Source: TSF
