Retired National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut Peggy Whitson safely landed in the Pacific Ocean early Tuesday morning, wrapping up her fifth trip to the International Space Station (ISS).
She came back with three other astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary, who had just finished their countries’ first missions to the ISS.
The four astronauts rode in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, landing by parachute in calm waters off the coast of Southern California around 2:30 a.m. PDT (0930 GMT). Their return ended a 22-hour trip from space, finishing with a hot reentry into Earth’s atmosphere.
As the capsule came back, it looked like a “mechanical meteor” and reached outside temperatures of 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,927 degrees Celsius) because of air friction. Inside, the astronauts stayed cool thanks to their special flight suits.
This mission was the fourth trip to the ISS planned by Texas-based Axiom Space and done with help from SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company near Los Angeles.
SpaceX and Axiom showed the return live on a webcast.
Infrared cameras captured the capsule’s parachutes slowing it down to about 15 mph (24 kph) before it splashed into the sea near San Diego.
Whitson, 65, led the Axiom-4 crew. She retired from NASA in 2018 after making history as the first female chief astronaut and the first woman to lead an ISS mission. Right after landing, she told mission control the crew was “happy to be back.” A ship quickly went to get the capsule and lift it onto the boat.
Each crew member was helped out one by one for medical checks, a process expected to take about an hour before heading back to shore.
A Diverse Crew
Whitson is now Axiom’s director of human spaceflight and has spent 695 days in space — the most of any American. She flew on three past NASA missions, led the Axiom-2 team in 2023, and just finished her fifth space trip as Axiom-4 commander.
The rest of her crew included Shubhanshu Shukla, 39, from India; Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, 41, from Poland; and Tibor Kapu, 33, from Hungary.
They brought back science samples from more than 60 experiments done during their 18-day stay on the ISS. These samples will go to researchers for analysis.
This mission was the first human spaceflight in over 40 years for India, Poland, and Hungary — and the first time any of these nations sent astronauts to the ISS through their space programs.
Shukla, an Indian Air Force pilot, is part of India’s plan to launch its first crewed spacecraft, Gaganyaan, in 2027.
Uznanski-Wisniewski represents the European Space Agency, and Kapu is part of Hungary’s HUNOR program. He’s not the first Hungarian on the ISS, though.
Charles Simonyi, a Hungarian-born billionaire software developer, flew to the ISS in 2007 and 2009 as a space tourist. But he paid for his trips himself and did not represent any government.
The Axiom-4 capsule, named “Grace” by the crew, launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on June 25. It’s the fifth SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicle to go to space.
They reached the ISS on June 26 and were greeted by a seven-person crew — three Americans, one Japanese astronaut, and three Russian cosmonauts. The teams said goodbye on Monday when Grace undocked to head home.
This was the 18th crewed space mission by SpaceX since 2020, when it started flying astronauts from US soil again after NASA’s space shuttle program ended.
Axiom, which is nine years old and started by a former NASA ISS program manager, keeps growing its business of sending astronauts from private and foreign groups into space.
The company is also working on a new private space station to replace the ISS, which NASA plans to retire around 2030.