French astronaut Pesquet, crewmates splash down off Florida after six months on ISS

A SpaceX capsule carrying four astronauts back to Earth after a busy six months on the International Space Station landed Monday off the coast of Florida, a NASA live broadcast showed.

Slowed by the Earth’s atmosphere, as well as four huge parachutes, the Dragon capsule was able to withstand the dizzying descent thanks to its heat shield.

It landed in the Gulf of Mexico at 10:33 pm US Eastern Time (0333 GMT Tuesday), marking the end of the “Crew-2” mission.

A boat will retrieve the capsule, and the astronauts on board will be brought back to land via helicopter.

And… splashdown! 🌊

The @SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour has splashed down off the coast of Florida at 10:33pm ET (03:33 UTC), returning the Crew-2 astronauts back to Earth after more than six months aboard the @Space_Station: pic.twitter.com/yZkjL27Cd8

— NASA (@NASA) November 9, 2021

Since arriving on April 24, the crew of two Americans, a Frenchman and one Japanese astronaut conducted hundreds of experiments and helped upgrade the station’s solar panels.

They boarded their Dragon, dubbed “Endeavour”, and undocked from the ISS at 2:05 pm (1905 GMT), NASA announced.

Endeavour then looped around the ISS for around an hour-and-a-half to take photographs, the first such mission since a Russian Soyuz spaceship performed a similar maneuver in 2018.

#Crew2 return: the two mission specialists @Thom_astro and @Aki_Hoshide have removed their spacesuits and Thomas is seen here taking photos of the @Space_Station through the #CrewDragon window during a fly-around manoeuvre. Watch 👉https://t.co/hR3Ywt2R45 pic.twitter.com/7B45maUZeh

— ESA (@esa) November 8, 2021

The Dragon, which flew mostly autonomously, has a small circular window at the top of its forward hatch through which the astronauts can point their cameras.

“Proud to have represented France once again in space! Next stop, the Moon?” tweeted Thomas Pesquet from the European Space Agency (ESA).

 Their activities have included documenting the planet’s surface to record human-caused changes and natural events, growing Hatch chile peppers and studying worms to better understand human health changes in space.

Crew-2’s departure was delayed a day by high winds.

Bad weather and what NASA called a “minor medical issue” have also pushed back the launch of the next set of astronauts, on the Crew-3 mission, which is now set to launch Wednesday.

Until then, the ISS will be inhabited by only three astronauts—two Russians and one American.

SpaceX began providing astronauts a taxi service to the ISS in 2020, ending nine years of US reliance on Russian rockets for the journey following the end of the Space Shuttle program.

Broken toilet

The crew also faced a final challenge on their journey home—they had to wear diapers after a problem was detected with the capsule’s waste management system, forcing it to remain offline.

Safe journey home #Crew2 @Thom_astro @Aki_Hoshide @Astro_Megan and @astro_kimbrough!🐉Though it’s a shame we won’t cross over on the @Space_Station, we trust you’ll leave everything nice and tidy 😉 pic.twitter.com/Fz65OIMzuK

— Matthias Maurer (@astro_matthias) November 8, 2021

They had no access to a toilet from the time the hatch closed at 12:40 pm (1740 GMT) until after splashdown—around 10 hours.

“Of course that’s sub-optimal, but we’re prepared to manage,” NASA astronaut Megan McArthur said at a press conference ahead of the departure.

“Space flight is full of lots of little challenges, this is just one more that we’ll encounter and take care of in our mission.”

A SpaceX all-tourist crew encountered a similar waste-related problem during a September flight, which triggered an alarm system.

NASA later said a tube had come unglued, sending urine to the capsule’s fan system instead of a storage tank.