Four astronauts made their journey back to Earth on Saturday after rushing to the International Space Station five months prior to relieve Boeing’s Starliner test pilots, who were stranded.
Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Pacific off the Southern California coast a day after departing the orbiting lab.
The team consisting of NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi, and Russia’s Kirill Peskov splashed down safely. They had been launched in March as substitutes for the two NASA astronauts associated with Starliner’s failed demo mission.
Issues with Starliner kept Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams at the space station for over nine months instead of the planned week. Consequently, NASA commanded Boeing’s crew capsule to return unoccupied and transferred the team to SpaceX. Following McClain and her crew’s arrival, Wilmore and Williams departed. Wilmore has since retired from NASA.
Before leaving the space station on Friday, McClain made note of “some tumultuous times on Earth” with people struggling.
“We want this mission, our mission, to be a reminder of what people can do when we work together, when we explore together,” she said.
Once back home in Houston, McClain anticipated “doing nothing for a couple of days.” Her teammates were eager for hot showers and juicy burgers.
This marked SpaceX’s third Pacific splashdown with individuals aboard, although it was NASA’s first such operation in 50 years. Elon Musk’s company shifted capsule landings from Florida to California earlier in the year to minimize debris risks in populated regions. The initial back-to-back private crews experienced Pacific returns.
The previous occasion for NASA astronauts to return from space to the Pacific was the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission, which showcased a détente between American and Soviet space teams.
Copyright © 2025 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
