{"id":331840,"date":"2025-08-10T00:32:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T00:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/331840\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T00:32:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T00:32:09","slug":"crew-10-astronauts-return-to-earth-in-spacex-capsule-after-5-months-aboard-space-station","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/331840\/","title":{"rendered":"Crew-10 astronauts return to Earth in SpaceX capsule after 5 months aboard space station"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Four astronauts returned to Earth on Saturday after\u00a0hustling to the International Space Station\u00a0five months ago to relieve the\u00a0stuck test pilots\u00a0of Boeing\u2019s Starliner.<\/p>\n<p>Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Pacific off the Southern California coast a day after departing the orbiting lab.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWelcome home,\u201d SpaceX Mission Control radioed.<\/p>\n<p>Splashing down were NASA\u2019s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan\u2019s Takuya Onishi and Russia\u2019s Kirill Peskov. They launched in March as replacements for the two NASA astronauts assigned to\u00a0Starliner\u2019s botched demo.<\/p>\n<p>Starliner malfunctions kept Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams at the space station for more than nine months instead of a week. NASA ordered Boeing\u2019s new crew capsule to return empty and switched the pair to SpaceX. They left soon after McClain and her crew arrived to take their places. Wilmore has since\u00a0retired from NASA.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/science\/astronaut-butch-wilmore-retires-from-nasa-several-months-after-extended-spaceflight\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> Astronaut Butch Wilmore retires from NASA several months after extended spaceflight<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Before leaving the space station on Friday, McClain made note of \u201csome tumultuous times on Earth\u201d with people struggling.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want this mission, our mission, to be a reminder of what people can do when we work together, when we explore together,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>McClain looked forward to \u201cdoing nothing for a couple of days\u201d once back home in Houston. High on her crewmates\u2019 wish list: hot showers and juicy burgers.<\/p>\n<p>It was SpaceX\u2019s third Pacific splashdown with people on board, but the first for a NASA crew in 50 years. Elon Musk\u2019s company switched capsule returns from Florida to California\u2019s coast earlier this year to reduce the risk of debris falling on populated areas. Back-to-back private crews were the first to experience Pacific homecomings.<\/p>\n<p>The last time NASA astronauts returned to the Pacific from space was during the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission, a d\u00e9tente meet-up of Americans and Soviets in orbit.<\/p>\n<p>The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n<p>\n                    We&#8217;re not going anywhere.\n                <\/p>\n<p class=\"invite_body\">\n                    Stand up for truly independent, trusted news that you can count on!\n                <\/p>\n<p>                <a href=\"https:\/\/give.newshour.org\/page\/85597\/donate\/1?ea.tracking.id=nh_july_2025_rescission_article&amp;supporter.appealCode=N2507QW07000AA\" class=\"donation-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n                    Donate now<\/p>\n<p>                <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four astronauts returned to Earth on Saturday after\u00a0hustling to the International Space Station\u00a0five months ago to relieve the\u00a0stuck&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3844],"tags":[70,413,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-331840","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115001658145440699","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}