All-private astronaut team returns safely from landmark space station visit

NEW YORK: The first all-private astronaut team ever flown aboard the International Space Station (ISS) safely splashed down in the Atlantic off Florida’s coast on Monday, completing a two-week science mission hailed as a milestone in commercial spaceflight.

The SpaceX crew capsule carrying the four-man team, led by a retired NASA astronaut who is now vice president of the Texas company behind the mission, Axiom Space, parachuted into the sea after a 16-hour descent from orbit.

The splashdown, carried live by a joint Axiom-SpaceX webcast, was originally planned for last Wednesday, but the return flight was delayed due to unfavorable weather.

The return from orbit followed a plunge through Earth’s atmosphere generating frictional heat that sends temperatures surrounding the outside of the capsule soaring to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,927 degrees Celsius). The astronauts’ flight suits are designed to keep them cool as the cabin heats up.

Applause was heard from the SpaceX flight control center in suburban Los Angeles as parachutes billowed open above the capsule in the final stage of its descent - slowing its fall to about 15 miles per hour (24 km per hour) - and again as the craft hit the water off the coast of Jacksonville.

A small recovery boat with a three-member team reached the Crew Dragon minutes later to secure the visibly heat scorched craft as it bobbed upright in the ocean. The capsule was hoisted from the sea onto the deck of a larger recovery vessel about 40 minutes later, and the hatch was opened to let the astronauts emerge.

A camera shot from inside the capsule showed the four crew members strapped into their seats, garbed in their helmeted white-and-black spacesuits.