The Crew-3 mission returned to Earth at dawn on Friday morning, Hungarian time, after the spacecraft separated from the International Space Station on Thursday morning.
Four astronauts, Matthias Maurer (ESA), Thomas Marshburn (NASA), Raja Chari (NASA) and Kayla Barron (NASA), will be on board the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. they travelled back from space, where they spent a total of 173 days. The spacecraft landed in the Gulf of Mexico, near Florida.
The four astronauts were scheduled to leave for the International Space Station on 31 October to relieve the Crew-2 mission, which had been in service for six months. But the launch was delayed by several circumstances made difficult by: the start was first postponed to 3 November on the grounds of bad weather conditions, and later a crew member fell ill, necessitating a further delay.
Crew-4, which replaced Crew-3, reached its destination at the end of April. The Crew-4 mission is the first NASA mission to include an equal number of women and men, and Jessica Watkins, the first woman of colour to serve on such a mission.
SpaceX has also recently sent a mission of all private astronauts into space with the Crew Dragon spacecraft. The tourists paid a hefty sum of around $55 million each to spend eight days on the ISS, where they also took part in various scientific experiments.
