NASA's Crew-12 mission has returned safely to Earth after nearly eight months aboard the International Space Station, with a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Los Angeles on Thursday.
The crew consisted of mission commander Jessica Meir and pilot Jack Hathaway, both NASA astronauts, along with European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot of France and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev of Russia.
The return journey began approximately 45 minutes before splashdown, with the spacecraft travelling at an orbital speed of 17,500 mph. The capsule fired its thrusters to exit orbit and plunged into the atmosphere, where its ablative heat shield withstood temperatures of up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit during reentry.
Over roughly half an hour, the capsule decelerated to a few hundred miles per hour. Four orange-and-white parachutes then deployed, slowing the spacecraft to just 16 mph before it settled gently into the ocean.
The Crew-12 mission marked the 20th time SpaceX had sent humans into orbit. The crew launched in February aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and docked with the space station the following day.
During their eight months in space, the crew completed dozens of science experiments and research projects, including studies of stem cells, crystal growth in microgravity, and bone loss in weightless conditions.
Meir conducted four spacewalks totalling just over 27 hours to perform maintenance and upgrades on the aging orbital outpost. Adenot performed three spacewalks, becoming the first French woman to walk in space.
Before departing, the Crew-12 team was relieved by the three astronauts and one cosmonaut of Crew-13, who arrived at the station last week to begin a six-month rotation.
At a pre-departure news conference held aboard the station last month, Meir said she was eager to be reunited with her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter. She also spoke of simpler things she had missed during her time in orbit.
"So looking forward to seeing nature again, feeling the breeze on my face, the wind rustling through the leaves. Experiencing all those things that we don't have up here," she said.
The two-time space veteran added that there were two things she would miss about space: weightlessness and the views of Earth.
