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Late Saturday, a SpaceX capsule carrying four astronauts launched from the International Space Station, aiming for a rare nighttime splashdown to conclude the company’s second crew flight.
It would be the first splashdown in darkness by a US spacecraft since Apollo 8′s crew returned from the moon in 1968.
NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, as well as Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi, returned home in the same Dragon capsule that took them to the space station last November. The return trip was supposed to take only 6 1/2 hours.
As the capsule undocked 260 miles (420 kilometres) above Mali, Hopkins broadcast, “Thank you for your hospitality.”
SpaceX planned a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico around 3 a.m. Sunday off the coast of Panama City, Florida. Despite the early hour, the Coast Guard increased patrols and deployed spotlights to keep any night-owl tourists at bay. The capsule carrying the first SpaceX crew was encircled by pleasure boaters last summer, posing a safety risk.
Hopkins, the spacecraft commander, and his crew launched into orbit with NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 15. Their replacements arrived a week ago on their own Dragon capsule, which was also used to launch SpaceX’s first crew last spring.
The four should have returned by now, but high offshore winds forced them to stay a few days longer at the space station. The best weather, according to SpaceX and NASA, is just before sunrise.
Glover’s 45th birthday was celebrated in space on Friday thanks to the delays.
“When I think of gratitude, I think of gratitude in terms of gratitude, awe, and connection. “I’m full of and motivated by these feelings on my birthday, as my first mission to space draws to a close,” Glover wrote on Twitter.
The undocking on Saturday night left three Americans, two Russians, one Japanese, and one French astronaut on the space station.
