SpaceX Dragon capsule safely returns Crew-3 astronauts again to Earth

The astronauts that flew to the ISS as a part of the SpaceX Crew-3 mission are again on Earth after nearly six months on the orbiting lab. They splashed down safely within the Gulf of Mexico aboard the Crew Dragon Endurance, which made its debut flight with the identical astronauts again in November 2021, on Could sixth at 12:43am ET — and NASA has captured a fairly spectacular night time video of the occasion.

As you possibly can see, the Endurance capsule seems to be notably glowy in infrared, most certainly as a result of it reached a temperature of round 3500 levels Fahrenheit upon coming into the ambiance. The restoration group pulled out NASA astronauts Kayla Barron, Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn, in addition to ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer from the capsule shortly after splashdown. Marshburn is the one veteran astronaut out of the 4, and he accomplished his fifth spacewalk in the course of the mission. It was the primary ISS mission for the opposite three, with Maurer being solely the second ESA astronaut to fly aboard a Dragon capsule.

The Crew-3 astronauts spent 177 days in orbit and began their stick with a bang. Shortly after they arrived on the station, all of the astronauts onboard needed to search security on their transport craft when the ISS handed dangerously near a subject of orbital particles. The US State Division later mentioned that the particles got here from a Russian missile check that destroyed one of many nation’s personal satellites.

SpaceX’s subsequent manned mission to the ISS is scheduled to launch in September with two NASA astronauts, one JAXA astronaut and one Russian cosmonaut. It will likely be the fifth crewed NASA Industrial Crew flight thus far after Crew-4 launched to the station again in April.