CNN reported that the four astronauts “who make up the Crew-5 team aboard the International Space Station returned home from a five-month stay in space Saturday, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico.” The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule “disembarked from the space station at 2:20 am ET, beginning the final leg of the astronauts’ journey.” The spacecraft “then maneuvered back toward Earth before plunging back into the atmosphere for a landing off the coast of Tampa, Florida[,] just after 9 p.m. ET Saturday.” The capsule was hauled out of the ocean by rescue ships and the astronauts then got to breath fresh air for the first time in five months. The four crew members – NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, astronaut Koichi Wakata of JAXA, and cosmonaut Anna Kikina of the Russian space agency Roscosmos – “launched to the space station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule this past October.”
Full Story (CNN)
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Dragon and Crew-5 NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, along with JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina splash down off the Florida coast at 9:02 p.m. ET on Saturday, March 11, after 157 days in space.
(SpaceX; YouTube)