SpaceX’s spacecraft safely delivered four astronauts to the ocean.

The Dragon spacecraft successfully landed in the offshore area near Jacksonville, Florida, USA, at 11:17 AM on September 4th.

Infrared image of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft landing in the Atlantic Ocean on September 4th. Photo: NASA TV.

The Dragon spacecraft carried the Crew-6 astronaut team, including astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren “Woody” Hoburg (NASA), Sultan AlNeyadi (UAE), and Andrey Fedyaev (Russian space agency Roscosmos), who touched down in the Atlantic Ocean this morning. Among the four crew members, only Bowen had previous spaceflight experience. According to the initial plan, they were supposed to return from the International Space Station (ISS) to Earth yesterday, but adverse weather conditions delayed their journey.

“We have conducted three spacewalks to assist Cygnus cargo spacecraft docking with the ISS. We’ve also performed various maintenance tasks, and we hope that when we leave, the space station will be in slightly better condition than when we arrived,” Warren stated.

The Dragon spacecraft autonomously undocked from the ISS at 6:05 PM on September 3rd. With this return mission, the Crew-6 crew concluded their 186-day-long space mission. SpaceX’s recovery vessels were positioned near the landing site and quickly assisted in retrieving the spacecraft and its crew from the water.

This flight not only marked AlNeyadi’s first space journey but also the first long-duration spaceflight by a UAE astronaut. AlNeyadi is the second UAE astronaut to venture into space after Hazza AlMansoori, who conducted a brief one-week mission to the space station in 2019.

Meanwhile, Fedyaev became the first Russian in history to actively land on the surface of the Earth upon returning from space. His participation in SpaceX’s spacecraft was part of a seat exchange agreement between NASA and Roscosmos.

Following Crew-6’s return to Earth, the station will still have seven astronauts on board, including Frank Rubio and Jasmin Moghbeli (NASA), Andreas Mogensen (European Space Agency ESA), Satoshi Furukawa (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA), Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitry Petelin, and Konstantin Borisov (Roscosmos). Russia’s Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft is scheduled to depart from the station at the end of September, bringing Prokopyev, Petelin, and Rubio back to Earth. Upon completing the mission, Rubio will set a new U.S. record for the longest space mission, totaling 371 days, as reported by Space.