NASA’s Crew-7 mission has splashed down without incident off the coast of Florida, with the four astronauts on board returning safely from the International Space Station (ISS). The crew spent a total of 199 days orbiting the Earth and are now headed to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to rest and recover.
The crew traveled in a SpaceX Dragon capsule that undocked from the ISS on Monday, March 11, and splashed down at 5:47 a.m. ET on Tuesday, March 12. The group arrived at the station in late August 2023, and spent their time in orbit performing research and maintenance tasks.
“After more than six months aboard the International Space Station, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 has safely returned home,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a statement. “This international crew showed that space unites us all. It’s clear that we can do more – we can learn more – when we work together. The science experiments conducted during their time in space will help prepare for NASA’s bold missions at the moon, Mars, and beyond, all while benefiting humanity here on Earth.”
The crew consists of NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov. According to NASA, the group traveled a total of 84,434,094 miles while on board the space station and completed over 3,000 orbits around the Earth.
Among the work performed by Crew-7 was research into how the human immune system is affected by spaceflight and how microgravity affects liver cells in a way similar to aging. They also tested a new system for purifying wastewater. Members of the group also spoke to Nelson from the space station, talking about the research they were performing and about their life in orbit.
The astronauts have been replaced at the space station by the recently arrived Crew-8, which consists of three NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut. This group is working alongside one other NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts who arrived in September 2023 on a Russian Soyuz vehicle, bringing the current ISS crew to seven people.
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