Four astronauts have left the International Space Station on board a SpaceX vessel, after more than 160 days in space which will culminate in a splash landing off the Florida coast.
The Crew Dragon capsule undocked from the ISS as scheduled at 8:35pm on Saturday (00:35 Sunday GMT).
With the flight back to Earth expected to take six and a half hours, the crew was scheduled to splash down in the dark of night early on Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico, just off Panama City, Florida.
“Dragon separation visually confirmed,” a NASA commentator said after two sets of six hooks tying the capsule to the ISS retracted.
Four astronauts are preparing to return home from the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, ending their five-month mission to the orbiting laboratory.
The astronauts have set a record for the longest time in space by a crew that launched aboard an American-built spacecraft.
On Saturday evening, the crew is slated to climb aboard their spacecraft, which has remained fixed to the space station s docking ports since the astronauts arrived in November.
They ll undock from the ISS around 8.30pm ET (10:30am AEST) and then spend the night aboard their capsule as it free-flies through orbit.
The spacecraft will fire up its on-board engines to safely cut back into the Earth s thick atmosphere, and it ll use a series of parachutes to slow its decent before splashing down off the coast Florida on Sunday at around 2.57am ET (4:57pm).
Dragon Resilience returning to Earth to complete first operational Commercial Crew mission
May 1, 2021
NASA and SpaceX teams are preparing for the return of NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Soichi Noguchi to Earth, completing the historic Crew-1 mission. Crew Dragon
Resilience is scheduled to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Panama City, Florida, at 2:56 AM EDT (06:56 UTC) on Sunday May 2. It will mark the end of the first of six contracted, long duration, operational missions for SpaceX as a part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi and NASA crew depart ISS after six-month mission Sorry, but your browser needs Javascript to use this site. If you re not sure how to activate it, please refer to this site: https://www.enable-javascript.com/
Soichi Noguchi (right) waves alongside Akihiko Hoshide inside the International Space Station on Saturday before going aboard a SpaceX ship to return to the Earth after six months in orbit. | JAXA / VIA KYODO
Kyodo May 2, 2021
Washington – A SpaceX ship carrying four astronauts including Japan s Soichi Noguchi on Saturday departed the International Space Station, bound for Earth following the group s six-month mission in orbit.