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SpaceX brings 4 astronauts home in midnight leap



CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — SpaceX brought four astronauts home with a midnight splash in the Gulf of Mexico on Friday, closing the busiest month ever for Elon Musk’s taxi service.

Three U.S. astronauts and a German in the capsule were bobbing off the coast of Florida near Tampa less than 24 hours after leaving the International Space Station. NASA hoped to bring them back to Houston later in the morning.

“It’s been a great journey,” said the capsule commander, Raja Chari. Regarding the re-entry to gravity, he noted: โ€œJust a complaint. These water bottles are too heavy.โ€

Chari, Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron of NASA and Matthias Maurer of the European Space Agency emerged from the capsule within an hour, waving and raising their heads as they were taken to wheelchairs for medical checkups.

Their departure from the space station on Thursday was bittersweet as they embraced the seven astronauts who remained there.

“It’s the end of a six-month mission, but I think the space dream continues,” said Maurer.

SpaceX brought in US and Italian spares last week after completing a charter trip to the station for a trio of businessmen.

That equates to two crew launches and two splashes in just one month. Musk’s company has launched 26 people into orbit in less than two years since it began transporting astronauts for NASA. Eight of these 26 people were space tourists.

SpaceX vice president William Gerstenmaier described it as “quite an exciting time”. The company, founded by Musk in 2002, launched another batch of its own internet satellites known as Starlinks from Cape Canaveral just five hours after the jump.

“Satellites are beautiful, but the people flying are a little special and a little different, and the team here absolutely understands that,” he told reporters. “There’s a sense of relief and accomplishment because you know you’re doing something good.”

NASA has been more impressed than ever, given SpaceX’s recent hectic pace. The only noticeable issue on the latest flight was a mechanical nut that had come loose and floated away from the SpaceX capsule after Thursday’s docking. Authorities assured everyone that there would be no danger to the space station.

“Look at all this work over the past month,” said Kathy Lueders, NASA’s space operations mission chief. “I really want to thank SpaceX for performing such flawless operations on all these missions.”

The astronauts said their mission was highlighted by three visitors and former astronaut escorts who stopped by in April, and after decades of resistance, the station opened the NASA side to pay guests.

Worse, they had to contend with a dangerous rise in space junk after Russia blew up a satellite in a missile test in mid-November. More than 1500 pieces of shrapnel spread into Earth’s orbit over the coming years.

As the war in Ukraine caused tensions between the US and Russia, the astronauts sided with their Russian crewmates and vice versa. According to NASA officials, flight controllers in Houston and Moscow also continued to cooperate as always.

Since he left command of the space station earlier this week, Marshburn has described it as a “place of peace” and said international cooperation will likely be his lasting legacy. The new commander, Russian Oleg Artemyev, also emphasized “peace between our countries, our friendship” in orbit and described his crew as brothers.

Above are three Russians, three Americans and an Italian.

This was Marshburn’s third spaceflight, and the first for three others to return with it. Chari and Barron’s next stop could be the moon; One of 18 US astronauts selected for NASA’s Artemis moon landing program. Two more from this elite group are now on the space station.

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The Associated Press Department of Health and Science has support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. Only AP is responsible for all content.





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