Four astronauts have returned to Earth after a nearly eight-month space station stay that was extended by Boeing’s capsule trouble and Hurricane Milton.
A SpaceX capsule carrying the crew parachuted into the Gulf of Mexico, just off the Florida coast, before dawn Friday after undocking from the International Space Station earlier this week.
The three Americans and one Russian should have been back two months ago, but their homecoming was stalled by problems with Boeing’s new Starliner astronaut capsule, which came back empty in September due to security concerns. Hurricane Milton then intervened, followed by a further two weeks of high winds and rough seas.
SpaceX launched the four astronauts – Nasa’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin – in March. Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, credited the support teams back home who “had to re-plan, re-work and sort of redo everything with us … and helped us roll with all those punches”.
Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago. Those four will remain in orbit until February.
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The space station is back to its normal crew size of seven – four Americans and three Russians – after months of overruns.
