Nearly six months onboard the International Space Station, a Space X spacecraft carrying four astronauts landed on Friday. Space X Dragon Endurance spacecraft touched down off the coast of Florida, 10.13 am IST, Friday.
The crew landed on earth with 250 kg of cargo, containing tonnes of ISS research materials, after being landed in November.
A video posted by SpaceX shows two sets of parachutes billowing out just above the spacecraft in the last stages of descent slowing its fall as the vessel hits the water off the coast of Tampa.
NASA’s crew-3 leader Raja Chari, pilot Thomas Marshburn, and mission specialist Kayla Barron, as well as European Space Agency mission expert Matthias Maurer, were onboard the Dragon capsule. For us, today has been an interesting day, according to Reuters, Marshburn remarked in a farewell ceremony, “We’ve been flying about the station collecting our last minute photos or last-minute belongings and getting ready to come home, so a bit of bittersweet day for all of us.”
“The end of a truly lovely mission – the vision continued,” ESA’s Matthias Murer tweeted shortly after returning.