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6 months later, the 4 astronauts from the SpaceX mission return from space
Four space astronauts reached the Florida shore aboard their SpaceX Crew Dragon suitcase, closing their half-year stay in space.
Their excursion began on Monday shortly after 2 p.m. ET when space astronauts boarded the Crew Dragon suitcase, which had remained connected to the International Space Station (ISS) since it unveiled with the group in April.
The shuttle spent nearly nine hours gradually moving through the circle, closing in on the thick inner layer of Earth's environment before Crew Dragon shut down its engines to safely slice through the air, transport the parachutes, and land in the surrounding Gulf of Mexico from 10:30 pm on Monday.
Space astronauts take a radical step after the damage caused by the latrine in space 0:56.
Big landing
An armada of salvage ships anticipated their appearance and transported the four space explorers named — NASA's Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, the European Space Agency's French space traveler Thomas Pesquet, and Japan's Akihiko Hoshide — to well-being.
" It's extraordinary to be back on planet Earth," Kimbrough was heard saying minutes after arriving at the NASA broadcast.
During their time in space, Kimbrough, McArthur, Pesquet, and Hoshide conducted several scientific attempts and, surprisingly, tested the main stewing peppers developed in space.
Likewise, they carried out spacewalks, in which they donned the usual white suits to leave the space station and work outside, and overcame some agonizing difficulties, for example, overcoming the energy disappointment of another Russian module that was annexed to the ISS and momentarily removed her from her position.
The excursion back home introduced one final test: Problems with the latrines aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon container left space travelers without a bathroom option on their way home. All things being equal, the group had to rely on "clothing," basically adult diapers, during the nine-hour journey.
During a question and answer session conducted from a distance from the ISS on Friday, McArthur said that using clothing instead of the latrine is "problematic."
"However, we are prepared to cope," he said. "Spaceflight is full of small difficulties. This is just one more that we will experience and handle on our main objective, so we are not too stressed about it."
Kimbrough, McArthur, Pesquet, and Hoshide returned to Earth before the next team of space explorers could report to the ISS to replace them.
The goal of the NASA and SpaceX partnership for their joint missions on the ISS is to keep the 21-year-old space station fully staffed to make the most of the spinning lab while still functional.
Keeping enough personnel on board was a constant strain for NASA during the nearly 10 years that the United States did not have a rocket equipped to place space explorers in space.
Following the resignation of the space transportation program, the space office had to rely on its partnership with Russia and the Soyuz shuttle to get NASA space explorers to the space station.
The next trip is yet to come
SpaceX's next shipment of space explorers, called Crew-3, was postponed, first because of weather issues and then because of a "minor clinical problem" with one of the space travelers.
NASA said last week that it expects the medical problem to disappear before liftoff, which could occur when on Wednesday.
Now his rocket, called the Starliner, has long been bogged down and was lately removed from the platform after problems with its drive structure were found within seconds before a planned practice of the vehicle.
