Coming Home! Four Astronauts Leave the Space Station After Eight Months in Space
Quick Summary
Four astronauts undocked from the International Space Station today. They have been living and working in space since February. Now they are riding a SpaceX Dragon capsule back to Earth.
What Happened?
This morning, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft named Freedom closed its hatch and pulled away from the International Space Station. Inside were four astronauts from three different countries, all ready to come home after a very long journey.
The crew is called Crew-12. Its four members are NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, Sophie Adenot from the European Space Agency, and Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. The team launched on February 13 and has been living aboard the space station ever since.
Eight months in space is a long time. For comparison, your whole school year from September to June is only about nine months. These four astronauts spent almost that entire time floating in microgravity, far above the clouds.
While they were up there, the crew stayed very busy. They completed hundreds of science experiments. Jessica Meir and Sophie Adenot also took part in four spacewalks — going outside the station in spacesuits to do repairs and upgrades. A spacewalk means stepping into open space with nothing but a suit between you and the universe.
After undocking, Freedom is expected to spend about 27 hours traveling back toward Earth. If everything goes as planned, the capsule will splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on Thursday morning. Recovery boats will be waiting nearby to help the crew.
Re-entering Earth’s atmosphere is one of the most exciting parts of the journey. The capsule heats up to thousands of degrees on the outside as it streaks through the air like a fireball. Large parachutes then pop open to slow it down before it lands gently in the ocean.
Why Does It Matter?
Every time astronauts return safely from the space station, scientists learn more about how the human body handles long trips in space. This research is important for future missions to the Moon and Mars. The more we understand, the better we can prepare for longer and farther adventures.
Big Words
- Undocking — the moment a spacecraft detaches and pulls away from a space station, like a boat untying from a dock
- Microgravity — the condition in space where everything floats because there is almost no gravity pulling things down
- Splashdown — when a space capsule lands in the ocean instead of on land
- Cosmonaut — the Russian word for astronaut, used for space travelers from Russia
- Capsule — a small, pod-shaped spacecraft designed to carry people safely through space and back to Earth
Fun Fact
The Dragon capsule Freedom traveled at about 17,500 miles per hour while orbiting Earth — fast enough to circle the entire planet in just 90 minutes!
Think About It
If you could choose any experiment to run on the space station for eight months, what would you want to study, and why?
Sources
- NASA.gov — NASA to Stream SpaceX Crew-12 Return, Splashdown Live
- Space.com — SpaceX’s Crew-12 astronauts heading home today after nearly 10 months in space
- NASASpaceFlight.com — Crew-12 set to depart the ISS after eight months in orbit