SpaceX Dragon capsule returns crew 3 astronauts safely to Earth

Astronauts who traveled to the International Space Station as part of the SpaceX Crew-3 mission have returned to Earth after nearly six months in the orbiting laboratory. that they spread safely In the Gulf of Mexico aboard the Crew Dragon Endurance, which made its maiden flight with the same astronauts again in November 2021On May 6th at 12:43 PM ET – NASA captured a stunning nighttime video of the event.

As you can see, the resistance capsule appears particularly bright in the infrared, likely because it reached a temperature of about 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit when it entered the atmosphere. The recovery team evacuated NASA astronauts Kayla Barron, Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer from the capsule shortly after it crashed. Marshburn is the only veteran astronaut out of the four, having completed his fifth spacewalk during the mission. This was the first mission to the International Space Station for the other three, with Maurer being the second ESA astronaut to fly aboard a Dragon capsule.

The 3 astronauts spent 177 days in orbit and began their stay with great fanfare. Shortly after arriving at the station, all astronauts on board had to seek safety in their transport vehicle when the International Space Station was shot down. Came dangerously close in the orbital debris field. The US State Department later said the debris came from a Russian missile test that destroyed one of the country’s satellites.

SpaceX’s next manned mission to the International Space Station is scheduled to launch in September with two NASA astronauts, a JAXA cosmonaut and a Russian cosmonaut. This will be the fifth flight for NASA’s commercial crew so far after launching Crew-4 to the station in April.