Miami (EFE).- The SpaceX Dragon capsule separated this Sunday from the International Space Station (ISS) with the four crew members of NASA’s Crew-6 mission inside and began its journey to the coast of Florida.
As planned, the Dragon Endurance separated at 7:05 a.m. Eastern time from the Harmony module and is expected to reach the coast of Tampa, in western Florida, around 12:07 a.m. on Monday, September 4.
The return trip takes place after being postponed one day due to the bad weather forecast in the landing area and marks the end of a six-month mission in the ISS for the crew.
The members of Crew-6 are NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen (mission commander) and pilot Woody Hoburg; UAE astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev.
Shortly before separation, Bowen told mission controllers that it was a “privilege and an honor” to be part of this expedition. “We are approaching 23 years of continuous occupation of the International Space Station, which is absolutely amazing and it has been a true privilege to be a part of it,” he said.
Crew-6, months of research in space
After taking off on March 2 from the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida (USA), and docking the next day at the ISS, the crew of Crew-6 has carried out scientific research and maintenance tasks during this time on the so-called orbital laboratory.
“We welcomed the visiting Axiom (commercial mission) crew on board, did three spacewalks (…), did a lot of maintenance and hope to leave the space station a little better than we found it,” Hoburg noted this week, during a farewell act.
The members of this mission have briefly lived with the crew of Crew-7, which on August 27 docked at the ISS with its four crew members and temporarily populated the space station with 11 occupants.
Crew-7 will also carry out a six-month mission and is commanded by NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli and Andreas Mogensen, from the European Space Agency (ESA), as well as Satoshi Furukawa, from the Japanese agency JAXA, and Konstantin Borisov, of the Russian Roscosmos.
