The Dragon spacecraft successfully landed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida, USA, at 11:17 AM on September 4 (Hanoi time).
The Dragon spacecraft carried the Crew-6 astronauts, including NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren “Woody” Hoburg, Sultan AlNeyadi (UAE), and Andrey Fedyaev (Russian Space Agency Roscosmos), who all returned to Earth this morning. Among the four, only Bowen had previously traveled to space. Originally, they were scheduled to return from the International Space Station (ISS) yesterday, but bad weather postponed their return.
Infrared image of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft landing in the Atlantic Ocean on September 4. (Photo: NASA TV)
“We performed three spacewalks, assisted a Cygnus cargo ship in docking with the ISS, and completed various maintenance tasks. We hope that when we leave, the space station will be in a better condition than when we arrived,” Warren stated.
The Dragon spacecraft autonomously detached from the ISS at 6:05 PM on September 3. With this return, the Crew-6 astronauts completed a 186-day space mission. SpaceX recovery ships were positioned near the landing site to quickly retrieve the spacecraft and the crew from the water.
This mission marked not only AlNeyadi’s first spaceflight but also the first long-duration mission for an astronaut from the UAE. AlNeyadi is the second UAE astronaut to travel to space, following Hazza AlMansoori, who completed a brief one-week mission to the space station in 2019.
Meanwhile, Fedyaev became the first Russian in history to voluntarily land in water during a return from space. His participation in the SpaceX mission was part of a seat exchange agreement between NASA and Roscosmos.
After Crew-6’s return to Earth, seven astronauts will remain on the station, including Frank Rubio and Jasmin Moghbeli (NASA), Andreas Mogensen (European Space Agency ESA), Satoshi Furukawa (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA), Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin, and Konstantin Borisov (Roscosmos). The Russian Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft is expected to depart the station at the end of September, bringing Prokopyev, Petelin, and Rubio back to Earth. Upon completion of his mission, Rubio will set a new American record for the longest space mission at 371 days.
