May 4, 2021: -On Sunday, the four astronauts aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule “Resilience” safely returned to Earth, splashing down in parachutes landing in the Gulf of Mexico after a big mission to the International Space Station.
The astronauts spent over five months in space for the Crew-1 mission, the duration which is longer ever for an American-built spacecraft crew.
SpaceX mission control welcomed the astronauts with humor after they landed down, “We welcome you back to planet Earth and thanks for flying SpaceX. For those of you enrolled in our frequent flyer program, earned 68 million miles on this voyage.”
“SpaceX, ‘Resilience’ is back on Earth, and we’ll take those miles. Are they transferable?” NASA astronaut and spacecraft commander Mike Hopkins said jokingly after landing.
NASA astronauts Hopkins, Shannon Walker, and Victor Glover, and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi reaches the space station through the Dragon capsule after launching the tablet on top of a Falcon 9 rocket in the previous November.
After undocking from the space station on Saturday at 8:35 p.m. EDT, the astronauts traveled through the atmosphere. They landed in the Gulf of Mexico near Panama City, Florida, via parachutes at about 2:57 a.m. EDT on Sunday.
The landing was the crewed and U.S.-made spacecraft splashdown between the darkness since 1968, and the second time a space capsule has landed in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s also the second time NASA and SpaceX have brought astronauts back to Earth on a Crew Dragon spacecraft.
The second operational SpaceX crew mission came at the International Space Station early on April 24, with four astronauts for the next six-month stay in space.
The Crew-2 mission brought the total number of astronauts temporarily onboard the orbiting research laboratory to 11. As founded and led by CEO Elon Musk, SpaceX has now sent ten astronauts to space in under a year.
SpaceX developed its Crew Dragon spacecraft and fine-tuned its Falcon 9 rocket under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, providing the company with $3.1 billion to develop the system and launch six operational missions.
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