The retiree of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) became the private astronaut Peggy Whitson returned to Earth safely in the Pacific early Tuesday morning, concluding his fifth trip to the International Space ISS station).
She was joined by three teammates from India, Poland and Hungary, who returned from the first mission of their nations in the orbit laboratory.
The crew of four members, aboard a dragon capsule of the SpaceX crew, parachuted in calm waters off the southern coast of California around 2:30 pm (0930 GMT). Their yield marked the completion of a descent of 22 hours of orbit, capped by an ardent school year through the atmosphere of the earth.
The spacecraft, appearing as a “mechanical meteor”, endured external temperatures raising 3,500 burning degrees Fahrenheit (1,927 degrees Celsius) increased due to friction heating. Despite the intense heat, the combinations of specialized flights from astronauts assured that they remained fresh in the cabin.
The return flight concluded the fourth Mission ISS organized by the Startup based in Texas Axiom Space in collaboration with SpaceX, the private rocket company of the billionaire Elon Musk, whose headquarters are near Los Angeles.
The return was transported live by a joint webdiffusion of SpaceX-Aiom.
Two sets of parachutes, visible through the darkness and the light fog with infrared cameras, slowed down the last descent of the capsule at around 15 mi / h (24 km / h) a few moments before its splash off San Diego.
The Axiom-4 crew was led by Whitson, 65, who retired from NASA in 2018 after a pioneer career which included becoming the first female chief astronaut of the American space agency and the first woman to order an ISS expedition.
She struck off by radio to the mission control that the crew was “happy to be back” for a few moments after their return. A recovery ship was immediately sent to secure the capsule and hoist it from the ocean on the bridge of the ship.
The crew members had to be extracted from the capsule one by one and undergo medical examinations before the recovery ship ferries them on the ground, a process which should take about an hour.
Diversity crew
Now director of human space flights for Axiom, Whitson recorded 695 days in space, an American record, in three previous NASA missions, a fourth flight to Orbit as a commander of the Axiom-2 crew in 2023 and his fifth mission at ISS Commander Axiom-4.
Soup the Axiom-4 crew, Shubhanshu Shukla, 39, from India, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, 41, from Poland, and Tibor Kapu, 33, from Hungary.
They returned with a cargo of scientific samples of more than 60 microgravity experiences carried out during their 18 -day visit to the ISS and must be sent to researchers on Earth for a final analysis.
For India, Poland and Hungary, the launch marked the first human space flight of each country in more than 40 years and the first mission to send astronauts from the respective space programs of their government at the ISS.
The participation of Shukla, an Indian Air Force pilot, is considered by the space program of India as a precursor in a way to the first mission equipped with its orbital gaghanyaan spacecraft, scheduled for 2027.
Uznanski-Wisniewski is a Polish astronaut assigned to the European space agency, while Kapu is part of the Hungarian orbit program in his country (Hunor), although he is not the first person of Hungarian origin to board the space station.
Billionaire Charles Simonyi, a designer of Hungarian software who became an American citizen in 1982, visited the ISS twice as a space tourist, in 2007 and 2009, hitching to Russian soybean capsules.
But as many people rich in various countries who have paid their own path for Joyrides in space, Simonyi did not fly in the name of his homeland or any government.
Nicknamed “Grace” by its crew, the newly ordered capsule piloted for Axiom-4 has been launched from the Kennedy Space Center of NASA in Cape Canaveral in Florida on June 25, becoming the fifth vehicle of the dragon fleet of the SpaceX team.
The AX -4 team arrived at the ISS on June 26, welcomed on board by the last rotating team of seven occupants of the station – three American astronauts, a Japanese crew and three Russian cosmonauts. The two crews separated again early Monday when the Dragon Grace crew defeated to start its travel home.
Axiom-4 also marks the 18th crew space flight recorded by SpaceX since 2020, when Musk’s Rocket Company inaugurated a new era of NASA by offering American astronauts its first walks towards the space of American land since the end of the space shuttle program nine years earlier.
For Axiom, a 9-year-old company co-founded by the former NASA ISS program manager, the mission is based on its activities of astronauts sponsored by private companies and foreign governments in orbit on Lower.
Axiom is also part of a handful of companies developing a commercial space station of its own intended to possibly replace the ISS, which NASA plans to retire around 2030.
