Four astronauts have returned to Earth after nearly eight months on the space station, which was extended by problems with Boeing’s capsule and Hurricane Milton.
After unloading from the International Space Station earlier this week, a SpaceX capsule carrying crew landed in the Gulf of Mexico just off the coast of Florida early Friday.
Three Americans and a Russian were supposed to return two months ago, but their return home was hampered by problems with Boeing’s new Starliner astronaut capsule, which came up empty in September due to safety concerns. Then Hurricane Milton intervened, and two weeks of high winds and rough seas followed.
SpaceX launched four astronauts in March: NASA’s Matthew Dominik, Michael Barrett and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin. Barratt, the only astronaut to go on the mission, acknowledged the support teams that “have been with us replanning, restarting and doing it all over again … and helping us roll all those punches.”
Their replacements are two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own missions lasted eight days to eight months, and two astronauts who were launched by SpaceX four weeks earlier. All four will remain in orbit until February.
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The space station was overflowing with its usual crew size of seven — four Americans and three Russians — for months.
