SpaceX Crew-6 Mission Returns To Earth

The NASA-SpaceX Crew-6 mission made a safe return to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday, splashing down off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida. NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Woody Hoburg, United Arab Emirates astronaut Sultan Alneyadi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev spent 186 days in space for Crew-6. The mission was the sixth ISS crew rotation for NASA’s  Commercial Crew Program.

“After spending six months aboard the International Space Station, logging nearly 79 million miles during their mission, and completing hundreds of scientific experiments for the benefit of all humanity, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-6 has returned home to planet Earth,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “This international crew represented three nations, but together they demonstrated humanity’s shared ambition to reach new cosmic shores.”

Crew-6, which launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on March 2, was the fourth flight for the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft Endeavour. SpaceX launched its first crewed mission for the Commercial Crew Program, noted for being the first operational crewed launch by a private company, in November 2020. The program’s next mission, Crew-7, docked with the ISS on Aug. 27.