The crew of the Crew Dragon Endeavor spacecraft returned to Earth with four astronauts Monday night.
The space capsule parachuted into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida at 11:30 local time. The US space agency, NASA, has broadcast the return live.
With the space capsule, Thomas Pesquet of France, Housed Akihiko of Japan, and American astronauts Shanim Kimbrough and Megan MacArthur have returned to Earth.
The four spent 199 days in space aboard the International Space Station (ISS), a record in the history of American spaceflight. “Coming home” took eight hours.
The Crew Dragon’s onboard toilet was broken, so the astronauts had to wear diapers on their way home.
The spacecraft’s original plan, developed by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX, was to separate it from the International Space Station on Sunday, but the return was delayed by a day due to bad weather off the coast of Florida. Before blasting off to Earth, the space capsule orbited the International Space Station for an hour and a half so astronauts could take pictures of the space base.
(MTI)
