4 astronauts in orbit since spring hop ride on SpaceX rocket to return home
Four astronauts in orbit
since spring are headed back to Earth, aiming for a splashdown off the Florida
coast.
The undocking of their SpaceX capsule from
the International Space Station also paved the way for a launch of their four
replacements as early as Wednesday night.
The newcomers were scheduled to launch first, but NASA switched the
order because of bad weather and an astronaut's undisclosed medical condition.
The welcoming duties will now fall to the lone American and two Russians left
behind at the space station.
NASA astronauts Shane
Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, Japan's Akihiko Hoshide and France's Thomas
Pesquet should have been back Monday morning, but high wind in the recovery
zone delayed their homecoming. Their late night splashdown was planned for the
Gulf of Mexico off Pensacola.
"One more night with this magical view. Who could complain?
I'll miss our spaceship!" Pesquet tweeted alongside a brief video showing
the space station illuminated against the blackness of space and the twinkling
city lights on the nighttime side of Earth.
From the space station, NASA astronaut Mark
Vande Hei -- midway through a one-year flight -- bid farewell to each of his
departing friends, telling McArthur "I'll miss hearing your laughter in
adjacent modules."
Before leaving the neighbourhood, the four took a spin around the space station
to take pictures. This was the first time SpaceX attempted a
flyaround like this; NASA's shuttles used to do it all the time before their
retirement a decade ago.
It wasn't the most comfortable ride back. The toilet in their
capsule was broken, and so the astronauts needed to
rely on diapers for the eight-hour trip home. They shrugged it off late last
week as just one more challenge in their mission.
The first issue arose shortly after their April liftoff; Mission
Control warned a piece of space junk was threatening to collide with their
capsule. It turned out to be a false alarm. Then in July, thrusters on a newly
arrived Russian lab inadvertently fired and sent the station into a spin. The
four astronauts took shelter in their docked SpaceX capsule, ready
to make a hasty departure if necessary.
Comments
Post a Comment