SpaceX Dragon capsule returns crew 3 astronauts safely to Earth

Astronauts who traveled to the International Space Station as part of the SpaceX Crew-3 mission have returned to Earth after nearly six months in the orbiting laboratory. that they Spread it safely In the Gulf of Mexico aboard the Crew Dragon Endurance, which made its maiden flight with the same astronauts again in November 2021on May 6 at 12:43 a.m. ET – and NASA captured a wonderful nighttime video of the event.

As you can see, the endurance capsule appears particularly glowing in the infrared, likely because it reached a temperature of about 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit when it entered the atmosphere. The recovery team pulled NASA astronauts Kayla Baron, Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn, as well as ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer from the capsule shortly after it fell. Marshburn is the only veteran astronaut out of the four, having completed his fifth spacewalk during the mission. This was the first mission to the International Space Station of the other three, with Maurer being the second ESA astronaut to fly aboard a Dragon capsule.

Crew 3 astronauts spent 177 days in orbit and began their stay with great fanfare. Shortly after arriving at the station, all astronauts on board had to seek safety in their transport vessel when the International Space Station was Passed dangerously close to the orbital debris field. The US State Department later said the debris came from a Russian missile test that destroyed one of the country’s satellites.

SpaceX’s next manned mission to the International Space Station is scheduled for September with two NASA astronauts, a JAXA cosmonaut and a Russian cosmonaut. This will be the fifth flight for NASA’s commercial crew so far after launching Crew-4 to the station in April.