{"id":45887,"date":"2025-08-10T01:36:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T06:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=45887"},"modified":"2025-08-10T03:38:25","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T08:38:25","slug":"astronauts-return-to-earth-with-spacex-after-5-months-at-the-international-space-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=45887","title":{"rendered":"Astronauts return to Earth with SpaceX after 5 months at the International Space Station"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Four astronauts returned to Earth on Saturday after hustling to the International Space Station<\/a> five months ago to relieve the stuck test pilots<\/a> of Boeing\u2019s Starliner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Pacific off the Southern California coast a day after departing the orbiting lab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWelcome home,\u201d SpaceX Mission Control radioed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Splashing down were NASA\u2019s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan\u2019s Takuya Onishi and Russia\u2019s Kirill Peskov. They launched in March as replacements for the two NASA astronauts assigned to Starliner\u2019s botched demo.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starliner malfunctions kept Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams at the space station for more than nine months instead of a week. NASA ordered Boeing\u2019s new crew capsule to return empty and switched the pair to SpaceX. They left soon after McClain and her crew arrived to take their places. Wilmore has since retired from NASA<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before leaving the space station on Friday, McClain made note of \u201csome tumultuous times on Earth\u201d with people struggling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want this mission, our mission, to be a reminder of what people can do when we work together, when we explore together,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McClain looked forward to \u201cdoing nothing for a couple of days\u201d once back home in Houston. High on her crewmates\u2019 wish list: hot showers and juicy burgers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was SpaceX\u2019s third Pacific splashdown with people on board, but the first for a NASA crew in 50 years. Elon Musk\u2019s company switched capsule returns from Florida to California\u2019s coast earlier this year to reduce the risk of debris falling on populated areas. Back-to-back private crews were the first to experience Pacific homecomings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last time NASA astronauts returned to the Pacific from space was during the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission, a d\u00e9tente meet-up of Americans and Soviets in orbit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

abcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four astronauts returned to Earth on Saturday after hustling to the International Space Station five months ago to relieve the stuck test pilots of Boeing\u2019s Starliner. Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Pacific off the Southern California coast a day after departing the orbiting lab. \u201cWelcome home,\u201d SpaceX Mission Control radioed. Splashing down were NASA\u2019s Anne McClain and Nichole […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":45888,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5783],"tags":[20924,21932,2643],"class_list":["post-45887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-tech","tag-after","tag-astronauts","tag-spacex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45887"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45889,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45887\/revisions\/45889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}