A SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying four astronauts splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday night, Mar. 11, marking the successful conclusion of NASA's Crew-5 mission.

Successful Splashdown

According to Florida Today, the crew of the International Space Station (ISS) left the station at 2:20 AM EST on Saturday and blasted through the atmosphere at speeds of up to 3500 degrees Fahrenheit. The crew comprises Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada of NASA, Koichi Wakata of Japan, and Anna Kikina of Russia.

The Dragon "Endurance" capsule landed safely off the coast of Tampa at 9:02 PM EST after a nearly 19-hour return voyage.

SpaceX recovery crew members approached the bobbing 17,000-pound capsule, which was positioned in a Coast Guard-protected zone, to ensure it did not carry any harmful propellants. SpaceX's purpose-built recovery vessel "Shannon" was then used to rig the capsule for transportation.

After onboard medical checks, the crew would transfer to a waiting helicopter for transport to Florida's Kennedy Space Center. They are going to leave and go back home. The last stage of the journey takes Mann, Cassada, and Wakata back to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Kikina heads back to Russia.

This mission's splashdown marks the end of thousands of hours of research and upkeep aboard the space station.

Florida Today said that the first indigenous woman to go to space, Nicole Mann, captain of Crew-5, expressed gratitude to the NASA and SpaceX personnel shortly after liftoff. "To the teams at NASA and at SpaceX, thank you for an incredible expedition. It has been your tireless effort and attention to detail that have helped make this mission successful."

Using the slogan of the Marine Corps, "It has been an honor to add to the legacy. Semper Fidelis," Mann, a colonel in the Marine Corps, summed up her speech.

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SpaceX's Missions

After almost a decade without US access to crewed spaceflight due to the retirement of the space shuttle, SpaceX has flown seven crewed flights for NASA under a multibillion-dollar Commercial Crew Program contract, including the Demo-2 mission in May 2020.

SpaceX's Crew-5 mission was the company's eighth crewed voyage overall, including both commercial and non-commercial missions to space. It was also the first time a Russian cosmonaut had flown in an American-made spacecraft since NASA's shuttle program.

Crew-6, the most recent mission, launched on Mar. 2 and sent four astronauts to the ISS an over a week ago: NASA's Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, the United Arab Emirates' Sultan Alneyadi, and the Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. Assuming a six-month mission duration, the team will be back in the autumn.

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