A crew of four astronauts returned to Earth from the International Space Station early Monday morning, splashing down off the coast of Florida in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule under parachutes.
Their return marks the end of a six-month stay in orbit, part of a
mission called Crew-6 for NASA. Crew-6 marks Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s sixth operational crewed mission to the space station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program — an initiative to keep the ISS staffed using spacecraft built and operated by companies.
The members of Crew-6 include two NASA astronauts — Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg — Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, and Sultan Alneyadi from the United Arab Emirates. The foursome have been living and working in space since launching in March to ISS, a science laboratory orbiting some 250 miles (402 kilometers) above Earth.
A week before their departure from the ISS, Crew-6 welcomed a new replacement crew on board the station — another crew of four called Crew-7. That multinational crew included a NASA astronaut, a Danish astronaut with the European Space Agency, a Japanese astronaut and another Russian cosmonaut.
With Crew-6’s departure, there are now seven people living on the ISS, including three crew members of a Russian Soyuz mission who will be returning to Earth in late September after spending a year in orbit.
Source from: Bloomberg