Astronauts Return To Earth After 5 Months At The International Space Station
HuffPost
Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Pacific off the Southern California coast a day after departing the orbiting lab.
Four astronauts returned to Earth on Saturday after hustling to the International Space Station five months ago to relieve the stuck test pilots of Boeing’s Starliner.
Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Pacific off the Southern California coast a day after departing the orbiting lab.
Splashing down were NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov. They launched in March as replacements for the two NASA astronauts assigned to Starliner’s botched demo.
Starliner malfunctions kept Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams at the space station for more than nine months instead of a week. NASA ordered Boeing’s new crew capsule to return empty and switched the pair to SpaceX. They left soon after McClain and her crew arrived to take their places. 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.
