&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Nasa’s SpaceX Crew-10 returns after nearly 5-month stay in space")
Nasa’s SpaceX Crew-10 astronauts returned to Earth on Saturday after living on the International Space Station for nearly five months as the mission’s Crew Dragon capsule, named Endurance, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast at 8.33 am local time. “From the entire Crew-10, thank you,” radioed Anne McClain, NASA astronaut and Dragon commander, soon after splashdown. “It was truly the ride of a lifetime.”
Nasa astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov returned to Earth after the crew successfully undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday evening. McClain commanded Crew-10, Ayers was the pilot, and Onishi and Peskov were mission specialists.
Crew-10 was originally slated to leave the orbiting laboratory on Thursday. However, the event was postponed due to inclement weather conditions at the landing site. The journey from ISS to the landing site off the California coast on the gumdrop-shaped Dragon capsule took a total of 17.5 hours.
The crew has made significant contributions to advancing scientific knowledge and technology demonstrations during its stay on the ISS and conducted hundreds of experiments spanning biology, material science, and human physiology, key research that supports future long-duration missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
“During their stay in space, the crew studied space-caused mental and physical changes in astronauts, blood flow from the brain to the heart, future lunar navigation techniques and more,” NASA officials wrote in a blog post.
The mission underscores the reliability of commercial crew flights, with SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft continuing to play a pivotal role.
The crew had launched to the ISS on March 14 in a routine mission, replacing the Crew-9 team, which included NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, who remained on the station after arriving via Boeing’s Starliner capsule.
