NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 Completes Mission with Pacific Splashdown
Four astronauts returned to Earth on Aug. 9 after seven months aboard the ISS.
(San Diego, California) NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 team safely touched down in the Pacific Ocean off of San Diego at 11:33 a.m. EDT (15.33 GMT) on Saturday, August 9th; SpaceX’s capsule Dragon Endurance carried NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA’s Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov back to Earth after a seven-month mission aboard the International Space Station.
Photo of the Crew-10 Dragon Endurance capsule splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California courtesy of SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell on X, @gwynne_shotwell.
This marked the first Pacific splashdown for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program and its 10th rotation mission. The mission launched March 14 and docked with the ISS on March 16.
According to NASA, during their time on the ISS, the Crew-10 astronauts conducted extensive scientific work, from plant growth and DNA studies to experiments on microgravity’s impact on the human body. In May, McClain and Ayers completed a spacewalk to upgrade station hardware.
“Splashdown! Crew-10 is back on Earth from the International Space Station marking the completion of another successful flight,” said NASA acting Administrator Sean Duffy. “Our crew missions are the building blocks for long-duration, human exploration pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. NASA is leading the way by setting a bold vision for exploration where we have a thriving space industry supporting private space stations in low Earth orbit, as well as humans exploring the Moon and Mars.” During the mission, Crew-10 traveled nearly 63 million miles and orbited Earth 2,368 times. It was the first flight for Ayers and Peskov, and the second for McClain and Onishi, who have now spent 352 and 263 days in space, respectively.
