After a 5-month mission at the space station, NASA astronauts come back to Earth with SpaceX

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This was SpaceX’s third Pacific splashdown with people on board, but the first for a NASA crew in 50 years.

WASHINGTON — After a five-month mission, four astronauts came back to Earth on Saturday. Their journey to the International Space Station in March aimed to relieve the Boeing Starliner test pilots who were stranded there.

Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Pacific off the Southern California coast a day after departing the orbiting lab.

“Welcome home,” SpaceX Mission Control radioed.

Returning safely were NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, along with Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov. Their mission followed the departure of two NASA astronauts originally assigned to the Starliner’s malfunctioned test flight.

Due to issues with Starliner, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams had an unexpectedly extended stay at the space station, lasting over nine months instead of the planned one week. NASA decided to send the troubled crew capsule back without passengers and reassigned the astronauts to SpaceX. They departed the station shortly after McClain and her team arrived. 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 in Houston, McClain was eager to take a couple of days off to relax. Her crewmates had simple desires as well, like enjoying hot showers and indulging in juicy burgers.

SpaceX celebrated its third successful Pacific splashdown with humans onboard, marking a milestone for NASA as well, since it was the agency’s first Pacific crew return in half a century. Elon Musk’s company moved capsule landings to California’s coast from Florida to reduce risks related to falling debris in populated zones. Recent private astronaut crews were the pioneers of these Pacific splashdowns.

The previous occasion of NASA astronauts returning to the Pacific occurred in 1975, during the Apollo-Soyuz mission, which was a space collaboration between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.