An international crew of four astronauts safely returned to Earth on Monday after a successful six-month stay on the International Space Station, CNN reported. NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen, Woody Hoburg, Sultan Alneyadi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev splashed down safely in the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour in the Atlantic Ocean early Monday morning.
The splashdown occurred off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, at 12:17 a.m. EDT after a mission spanning 186 days in space, as per a NASA press release. The crew traveled 78,875,292 miles and completed 2,976 orbits around Earth during their mission, NASA said.
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''After spending six months aboard the International Space Station, logging nearly 79 million miles during their mission, and completing hundreds of scientific experiments for the benefit of all humanity, NASA's SpaceX Crew-6 has returned home to planet Earth,'' said Administrator Bill Nelson.
''This international crew represented three nations, but together they demonstrated humanity's shared ambition to reach new cosmic shores. The contributions of Crew-6 will help prepare NASA to return to the Moon under Artemis, continue onward to Mars, and improve life here on Earth,'' he added.
Notably, the Crew-6 mission lifted off at 12:34 a.m. EST on March 2, 2023, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
While aboard the International Space Station, they conducted hundreds of scientific investigations, technology demonstrations, and spacewalks. These included assisting a student robotic challenge, studying plant genetic adaptations to space, and monitoring human health in microgravity to prepare for exploration beyond low Earth orbit and to benefit life on Earth. They also investigated how wave turbulence in space affects fuel in satellites.
Notably, this marked the fourth trip to space and back for the Dragon Endeavour, having supported SpaceX's previous missions Axiom-1, Crew-2, and Demo-2.
