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Four astronauts depart international space station in return flight home Nasa retiree and crewmates splash down in Pacific after private ISS mission
(about 4 hours later)
Crew Dragon capsule will parachute into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on Tuesday Axiom-SpaceX mission led by Peggy Whitson, 65, returns to Earth from International Space Station
Nasa retiree turned private astronaut Peggy Whitson and three crew mates from India, Poland and Hungary departed the International Space Station early on Monday and embarked on their return flight to Earth. The Nasa retiree turned private astronaut Peggy Whitson splashed down safely in the Pacific early on Tuesday after her fifth trip to the International Space Station, along with crewmates from India, Poland and Hungary returning from their countries’ first ISS missions.
A Crew Dragon capsule carrying the quartet undocked from the orbital laboratory at 7.15am ET, ending the latest ISS visit organized by Texas-based startup Axiom Space in partnership with Elon Musk’s California-headquartered rocket venture SpaceX. A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying the four-member team parachuted into the sea off the coast of California at about 2.30am PDT (10.30am BST) after a fiery reentry through Earth’s atmosphere that capped a 22-hour descent from orbit.
If all goes as planned, the Dragon capsule will re-enter Earth’s atmosphere at the end of a 22-hour return flight and parachute into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California on Tuesday around 530am ET (0930 GMT). The return flight concluded the fourth ISS mission organised by the Texas-based startup Axiom Space in collaboration with SpaceX, the private rocket venture of the billionaire Elon Musk, headquartered near Los Angeles.
The Axiom astronauts, garbed in their helmeted white-and-black flight suits, were seen in live video footage strapped into the crew cabin shortly before the vehicle separated from the station, orbiting some 260 miles (418 km) over the east coast of India. The return flight was broadcast live by a joint SpaceX-Axiom webcast.
A couple of brief rocket thrusts then pushed the capsule safely clear of the ISS. Two sets of parachutes, visible through the darkness with infrared cameras, were expected to slow the capsule’s final descent to about 15mph (24km/h) moments before its splashdown off San Diego.
Whitson, 65, and her three Axiom crew mates - Shubhanshu Shukla, 39, of India, Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski, 41, of Poland, and Tibor Kapu, 33, of Hungary - spent 18 days aboard the space station conducting dozens of research experiments in microgravity. Minutes earlier, the spacecraft had been streaking like a mechanical meteor through Earth’s lower atmosphere, generating enough frictional heat to send temperatures outside the capsule soaring to more than 1,900C (3,500F). The astronauts’ flight suits are designed to keep them cool as the cabin heats up.
The mission stands as the fourth such flight since 2022 arranged by Axiom as the Houston-headquartered company builds on its business of putting astronauts sponsored by private companies and foreign governments into low-Earth orbit. The Axiom-4 mission crew was led by Whitson, 65, who retired from Nasa in 2018 after a pioneering career that included becoming the US space agency’s first female chief astronaut and the first woman to command an ISS expedition.
For India, Poland and Hungary, the launch marked the first human spaceflight in more than 40 years and the first mission ever to send astronauts from their government’s respective space programs to the ISS. Whitson, now director of human spaceflight for Axiom, logged 675 days in space – a US record – during three previous Nasa missions and a fourth flight to space as commander of the Axiom-2 crew in 2023. Her latest mission commanding Axiom-4 will extend her record by about three more weeks.
Dubbed “Grace” by its crew, the newly commissioned capsule flown for Axiom-4 was launched from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral in Florida on 25 June, making its debut as the fifth vehicle in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon fleet. The Axiom-4 crew also included Shubhanshu Shukla, 39, of India, Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski, 41, of Poland, and Tibor Kapu, 33, of Hungary.
Axiom-4 also marks the 18th crewed spaceflight logged by SpaceX since 2020, when Musk’s rocket company ushered in a new Nasa era by providing American astronauts their first rides to space from US soil since the end of the space shuttle program nine years earlier. They are returning with a cargo of science samples from more than 60 microgravity experiments conducted during their 18-day visit to the ISS, which are due to be shipped to researchers on Earth for analysis.
The Axiom-4 multinational team was led by Whitson, who retired from Nasa in 2018 after a pioneering career that included becoming the US space agency’s first female chief astronaut and the first woman to command an ISS expedition. For India, Poland and Hungary, the launch marked the first human spaceflight for each country in more than 40 years and the first mission to send astronauts from their government’s respective space programmes to the ISS.
Now director of human spaceflight for Axiom, she had logged 675 days in space, a US record, during three previous Nasa missions and a fourth flight to space as commander of the Axiom-2 crew in 2023. Her latest mission commanding Axiom-4 will extend her record by about three more weeks. The participation of Shukla, an Indian air force pilot, is seen by India’s space programme as a precursor to the debut crewed mission of its Gaganyaan orbital spacecraft, planned for 2027.
Axiom, a nine-year-old venture co-founded by Nasa’s former ISS program manager, is one of a handful of companies developing a commercial space station of its own intended to eventually replace the ISS, which Nasa expects to retire around 2030. Uznański-Wiśniewski is assigned to the European Space Agency, while Kapu is part of his country’s Hungarian to Orbit (HUNOR) programme, though he is not the first person of Hungarian descent to board the space station.
Charles Simonyi, a Hungarian-born billionaire software designer who became a US citizen in 1982, has twice visited the ISS as a space tourist, in 2007 and 2009, riding aboard Russian Soyuz capsules.
But like many wealthy individuals from various countries who have paid their own way for rides into space, Simonyi was not flying on behalf of his homeland or any government.
Named “Grace” by its crew, the newly commissioned capsule flown for Axiom-4 was launched from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 25 June, becoming the fifth vehicle in SpaceX’s Crew Dragon fleet.
The Axiom-4 team arrived at the ISS on 26 June, welcomed aboard by the station’s latest rotating crew of seven occupants: three US astronauts, one Japanese crewmate and three Russian cosmonauts. The two crews parted company again early on Monday this week, when Crew Dragon Grace undocked to begin its voyage home.
Axiom-4 also marks the 18th crewed spaceflight logged by SpaceX since 2020, when Musk’s rocket company ushered in a new Nasa era by providing American astronauts with their first rides to space from US soil since the end of the space shuttle programme nine years earlier.
For Axiom, a nine-year-old venture co-founded by Nasa’s former ISS programme manager, the mission builds on its business of putting astronauts sponsored by private companies and foreign governments into low Earth orbit.
Axiom is also one of a handful of companies developing a commercial space station of its own that is intended to replace the ISS, which Nasa expects to retire around 2030.