Description
Four astronauts from NASA and SpaceX's five-month Crew-5 mission returned safely from the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday when the spacecraft carrying them crashed off the coast of Florida. The SpaceX capsule, named Endurance, parachuted safely into the Gulf of Mexico off Tampa, Florida at 9:02 p.m. days in space, according to a NASA blog post. What is NASA's SpaceX Crew-5 mission?
The Crew-5 mission launched on October 5 on a Falcon 9 rocket from the US agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and docked with the ISS the next day to begin routine scientific studies. The SpaceX Crew-5 mission of the Crew Dragon spacecraft marked the eighth total crewed orbital flight and the fifth operational flight for NASA's commercial crew program.
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Members of NASA's SpaceX Crew-5 mission
Anna Kikina, 38, became the first Russian to fly on a US spacecraft in 20 years, following an agreement signed in 2022 between NASA and the Russian space agency to conduct joint flights. With her on board are NASA flight commander Nicole Aunapu Mann, 45, the first Native American woman in space, NASA pilot Josh Cassada, 49, and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, 59. , which was on its fifth space mission.
The mission is succeeded by NASA's SpaceX Crew-6 team, which also includes four members: NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, as well as United Arab Emirates (UAE) astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and cosmonaut Roscosmos. Andrey Fedyaev.
