Four astronauts have returned to Earth, each having completed the first long-duration spaceflight on the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA’s Stephen Bowen and Warren “Woody” Hoiburg, Sultan Al Neyadi of the United Arab Emirates, and Andrey Fedyaev of Russia’s federal space corporation Roscosmos, collectively landed SpaceX’s Crew-6, aboard the company’s Dragon “Endeavour” spacecraft at Twelve o’clock. :17 a.m. EDT (0417 GMT) Monday (September 4) in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida. Of the four, Bowen was the only one who had flown in space before.
“When we came here six months ago, it was a new experience for all of us,” Bowen said during a short farewell ceremony on board the station on Thursday (August 31). “I’ve been to space, but I’ve never done a long-duration mission. This was an absolutely amazing experience, and a great opportunity to watch my amazing crewmates in action.”
Related: SpaceX Crew-6 astronauts say goodbye from the International Space Station
We take It was launched on March 2The Crew-6 astronauts’ landing ended their 186-day mission, serving as flight engineers for Expedition 68 and Expedition 69 aboard the International Space Station.
They were originally scheduled to return home on Sunday morning (September 3), but adverse weather conditions extended their stay in orbit by one day.
“It has certainly been the experience of a lifetime and a true honor to spend six very short months living and working aboard this amazing orbital station,” Warren said at the same ceremony. “I think we’ve accomplished a lot. We started with SpaceX [Commercial Resupply Services or CRS] 27 On the spot, a cargo vehicle full of flags. Later, we had SpaceX [CRS] 28 mission, we also welcomed Visit the Axiom crew on board.”
“We’ve done three spacewalks between our sixth crew. We’ve been put on the Cygnus ship [cargo] trolley. “We’ve done a lot of maintenance, and we hope to leave the space station a little better than we found it,” Warren said.
The four astronauts departed the space station on Sunday, with the Dragon Endeavour rover independently detaching from its space-facing Harmony Port at 7:05 a.m. EDT (1105 GMT).
For Al Neyadi, it was not only his first trip, but also the first long-term expedition undertaken by an Arab and an Emirati. It’s just him The second Emirati astronaut to flyfollowing the short, week-long mission to the space station by Hazza Al Mansouri in 2019. The first Arab in space, Prince Sultan Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, launched on a NASA space shuttle in 1985.
“We had good contact with a lot of people around the world, so it was really great – especially for my region,” Al Neyadi said. “I come from a place where human spaceflight stopped more than 30 years ago, and I felt it was my duty to show what was happening with the station. I think it was a small push toward spreading enthusiasm in our region.”
Al Neyadi was responsible for selecting Crew-6 Zero Gravity IndicatorIt is a small plush doll of the UAE astronaut program mascot, “Suhail,” which also returned to Earth on Monday aboard the “Dragon” spacecraft.
Fedyev is the second Russian astronaut and the first Russian man in history to do so intentionally Returning from space to landing on water. His flight aboard the SpaceX spacecraft was part of a seat-swap agreement between NASA and Roscosmos.
SpaceX’s recovery boats, including the “Megan” — named after NASA astronaut Megan McArthur, one of the first women to fly on the SpaceX Dragon — were positioned near the landing point and were quickly on hand to help recover the vehicle. The satellite and its crew. from water.
As Crew-6 returns to Earth, the 69th Space Station Expedition continues with NASA astronauts Frank Rubio and Yasmine Moghbeli, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and astronauts Roscosmos Sergei Prokopyev, and Dmitry. Bethlin and Konstantin Borisov. Expedition 70 will begin when the Russian Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft departs the station in late September carrying Prokopyev, Petilin and Rubio, the latter of whom set a new American record for time on a single space mission of 371 days.
Crew-6 was SpaceX’s sixth crew rotation flight for NASA, the seventh crewed spaceflight in support of NASA, and the ninth human spaceflight in the company’s history. Crew 6 marked The fourth flight of Endeavourwhich previously sent the Demo-2, Crew-2, and Axiom-1 missions to and from the space station.
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