SpaceX commercial crew returns to Earth with Atlantic Ocean splashdown
The first fully commercial, non-government crew to visit the International Space Station plunged back to Earth Monday, descending across the heartland of America to a picture-perfect splashdown off the coast of Florida to close out an extended, first-of-a-kind mission.
Descending under four taut parachutes, the Crew Dragon "Endeavour," carrying commander Michael López-Alegría, Ohio real estate executive Larry Connor, Canadian philanthropist Mark Pathy and Eytan Stibbe, the second Israeli in space, set down with a splash at 1:07 p.m. EDT to wrap up a 17-day mission.
SpaceX crews deployed nearby quickly reached the gently bobbing capsule to make initial contact with the returning station fliers while a recovery ship moved in to pull the spacecraft aboard. Within the hour, all four crew members had been helped out of the spacecraft, looking a bit wobbly but otherwise in good shape as they readjusted to gravity after more than two weeks in weightlessness.
"The crew is doing very well, is in great spirits," said Derek Hassmann, director of operations and training for Axiom Space, the company that paid for the mission. "We had two Axiom flight surgeons on the SpaceX recovery vessel in the Atlantic and (they) did a quick medical evaluation. Everybody looks great and is feeling reasonably well."
The crew was expected to fly back to the mainland via helicopter and then onto Orlando for several days to complete medical and other research they carried out aboard the space station and, in the near term, enjoy "a well-deserved night of rest," Hassmann said.
Splashdown came a week later than originally planned because of high winds and rough seas in the available landing sites in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic and to avoid conflict with a Russian spacewalk early last week.
But with a forecast calling for near-ideal conditions Monday, López-Alegría and his crewmates bid the station crew farewell and undocked from the lab complex Sunday evening, enjoying a final "night" in space before heading home.
The descent began at 12:16 p.m. when the Crew Dragon, after shedding its no-longer-needed trunk section, fired its nose-mounted braking rockets for about nine minutes, slowing the ship by some 130 mph, just enough to drop out of orbit on a trajectory toward the Florida coast.
After a half-hour free fall, Endeavour slammed into the discernible atmosphere, using its SpaceX-designed heat shield to dissipate the 2,000-degree temperatures generated by atmospheric friction.
After a steep northwest-to-southeast trajectory across the heartland of America, the spacecraft's four main parachutes deployed and less than five minutes later, Endeavour splashed down within sight of recovery crews.
Plans for the next launch
With the Axiom-1 — Ax-1 — crew safely back on Earth, NASA and SpaceX are pressing ahead with plans to launch four professional astronauts to the space station Wednesday atop a Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday.
The Crew-4 astronauts — commander Kjell Lindgren, pilot Bob Hines, geologist-astronaut Jessica Watkins and European Space Agency astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti — are scheduled for blastoff at 3:52:55 a.m. Wednesday, setting up a docking at the space station Wednesday night.
Benji Reed, director of human spaceflight programs at SpaceX, said engineers already were reviewing data collected during the Axiom-1 mission to make sure no issues were present that might affect the Crew-4 launch.
"We'll have a launch readiness review later tonight, and we'll be ready to present any concerns or issues and most likely, how everything's looking great for our launch for Crew-4," he said.
Lindgren and his crewmates are replacing Crew 3 commander Raja Chari, pilot Thomas Marshburn, submariner-turned-astronaut Kayla Barron and European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer, who were launched to the station last November. They're expected to return to Earth next week with a splashdown of their own.
Boosting the private sector in space
The just-completed Axiom-1 mission was the sixth piloted flight of a SpaceX Crew Dragon, the second carrying non-professional astronauts on commercial missions to low-Earth orbit and the first to make a fully commercial visit to the space station.
The mission was carried out with NASA's cooperation and encouragement, part of an agency initiative to spur private-sector utilization of the International Space Station and the eventual development of commercial research stations in Earth orbit.
Unlike wealthy "space tourists" who have visited the space station in the past escorted by Russian cosmonauts, the Ax-1 crew carried out multiple biomedical experiments, technology demonstrations and public outreach, mirroring the sort of work future NASA-sanctioned commercial crews are expected to carry out aboard the space station.
Houston-based Axiom Space paid SpaceX an undisclosed amount for the flight while paying NASA for space station resources and assistance by the lab's professional crew. The negotiated cost of the mission covered the possibility of launch and landing delays.
López-Alegría, a former astronaut and Axiom vice president, flew as a company representative while Connor, Pathy and Stibbe paid for their seats. No cost figures were released by Axiom, NASA or the three paying passengers, but NASA's inspector general has estimated the cost of a Crew Dragon seat at around $55 million.
Axiom Space plans to launch several "private astronaut missions" as the company develops research and habitation modules that will initially be attached to the International Space Station and then fly on their own as a stand-alone lab complex after the ISS is retired.
"Overall, this has been just an amazing success," Hassmann said of the Axiom-1 mission. "The crew performed beyond expectations, the ground teams were tremendous. Looking forward to seeing the crew tomorrow and getting feedback on their experience and then starting to work toward Ax-2 and subsequent missions."