Splashdown of NASA's SpaceX Crew-5 returns to Earth after ISS mission

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13-03-2023, 22:37

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INA - SOURCES

NASA's Crew-5 mission wrapped up Saturday night in the Gulf of Mexico with the splashdown return of a SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying a crew of four astronauts.

After nearly six months in space, NASA's Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, Japan's Koichi Wakata, and Russia's Anna Kikina departed the International Space Station at 2:20 a.m. EST Saturday before blazing through the atmosphere, their heat shield enduring temperatures up to 3,500 degrees.

As the 17,000-pound capsule bobbed in an area cordoned off by the Coast Guard, a SpaceX recovery team approached to confirm that no toxic propellants were present. The capsule was then rigged up and hoisted onto the deck of SpaceX's custom-built recovery vessel named "Shannon."

The crew would complete medical checkouts aboard the vessel before boarding a helicopter destined for the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. From there, they travel home. For astronauts Mann, Cassada, and Wakata, the trip's final leg returns them to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, while Kikina will return home to Russia.

Splashdown officially completes a mission dedicated to thousands of hours of science experiments and station maintenance.