CAPE CANAVER, Florida –
SpaceX brought four astronauts home with a midnight crash in the Gulf of Mexico on Friday, ending the busiest month so far for Elon Musk’s taxi service.
The three American astronauts and a German in the capsule boarded off the coast of Florida, near Tampa, less than 24 hours after leaving the International Space Station. NASA expected to return them to Houston later this morning.
“It was a great ride,” said Raja Chari, the capsule commander. As for the reintroduction of gravity, he noted: “Just one complaint. These water bottles are super heavy.”
Charms from NASA, Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron and Matthias Maurer from the European Space Agency came out of the capsule within an hour of spraying, waving and raising their thumbs as they were taken to rolling sunbeds for medical examinations.
Their departure from the space station on Thursday was bitter as they embraced the seven astronauts who remained there.
“This is the end of a six-month mission, but I think the space dream is alive,” Maurer said.
SpaceX unveiled its alternates in the United States and Italy last week after completing a charter trip to the station for three businessmen.
This equates to two crew launches and two descents in just one month. Musk’s company has already launched 26 people into orbit in less than two years since it began transporting astronauts to NASA. Eight of these 26 were space tourists.
William Gerstenmeier, vice president of SpaceX, admits it’s a “very exciting time.”
Just five hours after the crash, the company, founded by Musk in 2002, launched a new batch of its own Internet satellites known as the Starlinks of Cape Canaveral. There were 53 of the flat-panel mini satellites in this pre-dawn load.
“The satellites are nice, but the flying people are a little special and a little different, and the team here certainly understands that,” he told reporters. “There’s a sense of relief and a sense of accomplishment that you know you’ve done something good.”
NASA is more impressed than ever, given the unprecedented pace of SpaceX. The only problem to be noted in the last flight was a mechanical nut that loosened and emerged from the SpaceX capsule after disconnection on Thursday. Authorities have assured everyone that it will not pose a danger to the space station.
“Look at all this work over the last month,” said Cathy Luders, head of NASA’s space operations mission. “I really want to personally thank SpaceX for just, wow, just doing such seamless operations on all these missions.”
The astronauts said their mission was underscored by the three visitors and their former escort of astronauts, who landed in April, opening NASA’s side to the paying guest station after decades of resistance.
On the other hand, they had to fight a dangerous leap into space debris after Russia blew up a satellite in a missile test in mid-November. More than 1,500 pieces of shrapnel have been orbiting the Earth for years to come.
As the war in Ukraine sparked tensions between the United States and Russia, the astronauts stood by their Russian counterparts and back. Flight supervisors in Houston and Moscow also continued to cooperate, as always, according to NASA officials.
As he relinquished command of the space station earlier this week, Marshburn called it a “place of peace” and said international co-operation was likely to be her enduring legacy. Russian Oleg Artemiev, the new commander, also emphasized “peace between our countries, our friendship” in orbit and described his teammates as brothers and sisters.
There are now three Russians up there, three Americans and one Italian.
This was Marshburn’s third space flight and the first for the three returning with him. Charlie and Barron’s next stop may be the moon; they are among 18 American astronauts selected for NASA’s Artemis moon landing program. Two other members of this elite group are now on the space station.
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The Associated Press’s Department of Health and Science receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Scientific Education. AP is solely responsible for all content.
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