Miami (EFE) around midnight on Tuesday (local time).
The ship, called Freedom, had undocked from the ISS Harmony module at 15:05 GMT on Tuesday and fell into the Gulf of Mexico in a controlled manner thanks to the four parachutes deployed in the descent at 03:04 GMT on Wednesday.
The four astronauts of the Ax-2, the second mission of the private firm Axiom Space to the ISS, are the commander and former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, the pilot John Shoffner, an American businessman and aviator who paid to be part of this trip, and Saudi specialists Ali Alqarni and Rayyanah Barnawi.
The Ax-2 mission lasted ten days, eight of which were spent in the international laboratory in orbit.
The success of Ax-2
“SpaceX, we’d like to tell you what a phenomenal trip it was,” said Commander Whitson, with four space flights on her record and the longest American person in space (more than 665 days), after splashdown near the coast of Panama City, in northwestern Florida.
The Freedom capsule was recovered from the sea and loaded aboard a SpaceX recovery ship with the astronauts inside.
Ax-2 followed the path begun in 2022 by the Ax-1 mission, which was the first flight with a completely private crew to the orbiting laboratory of Space History and was commanded by former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría, of Spanish origin. , who is also a director of Axiom Space.
AlQarni and Barnawi, from the Saudi Space Commission, were the first Saudi astronauts to visit the ISS. Barnawi is also the first woman from her country to reach space.
Before them went into space Saudi Prince Sultan bin Salman Al Saud, who flew on the STS-51-G space shuttle Discovery mission in 1985.
experiments and investigations
During the eight days on the ISS, the four Ax-2 astronauts carried out some twenty scientific experiments and technological investigations, 14 of which were devised by Saudi scientists.
During their time aboard the ISS, the crew also participated in eight televised events for Saudi Arabia, including several aimed at schoolchildren.
The Dragon Freedom, which with this mission completed its second space trip, fell into the Gulf of Mexico with more than 300 pounds (136 kilos) of NASA equipment and scientific material.
The Ax-2 represents a step forward for the company towards the goal they have of building a commercial space station in low Earth orbit, and thus taking advantage of “the benefits of microgravity to improve life on Earth”, according to they point out on their website.
