On Friday, three NASA astronauts and one ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut successfully returned to Earth from the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Kayla Barron, Raja Chari, and Tom Marshburn, as well as ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, returned to Earth at 12:43 a.m. EDT aboard the SpaceX Dragon Endurance spacecraft. They were in orbit for 177 days, making it NASA’s third commercial crew mission with a long duration.
“Then there’s splashdown! Dragon has returned safely to Earth with four #Crew3 astronauts aboard!” NASA posted something on Twitter.
“NASA’s collaboration with SpaceX has once again enabled us to safely transfer a crew to the space station and back, enabling innovative science that will enable our astronauts to travel further into space than ever before. This mission is another another indication that we are living in the heyday of commercial spaceflight “NASA Administrator Bill Nelson made the announcement in a statement.
“Thank you for your service, Kayla, Raja, Tom, and Matthias, and welcome home!” he added.
The Crew-3 mission took off on a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on November 10. During their mission, Barron, Chari, Marshburn, and Maurer travelled 75,060,792 miles, spent 175 days aboard the space station, and orbited Earth 2,832 times. Over the course of his three missions, Marshburn has spent 339 days in space. Barron, Chari, and Marshburn made their first trip into space on the Crew-3 mission. The Crew-3 astronauts participated in a variety of science and maintenance activities as well as technology demonstrations throughout their mission. They also performed three spacewalks outside the space station to perform station maintenance and upgrades.
Hundreds of images of Earth were taken as part of the Crew Earth Observation research, which is one of the longest-running investigations aboard the space station and helps track natural disasters and changes to the planet.
