NASA's SpaceX Crew-2 Undocks From ISS: What Happens Next
As expected, today marks the return of NASA, ESA, and JAXA astronauts on the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavor spacecraft, marking the end of NASA's Crew-2 mission that launched back in late April. The SpaceX Crew-2 mission docked with the International Space Station on April 24 and, as of 2:05 PM ET today, has undocked for a return to Earth.
NASA had published its updated Crew-2 return mission plans over the weekend, revealing an anticipated Endeavor splashdown off the Florida coast no later than 10:33 PM ET today, November 8. The space agency had originally planned for the return mission to happen on November 7, but high winds anticipated around the splashdown zone resulted in bumping the undocking ahead by one day.
Weather conditions were more favorable today and things have, so far, gone as planned: the capsule with the astronauts undocked from the ISS at 2:05 PM ET as scheduled and is now quickly making its way back to Earth. The capsule is carrying JAXA astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, NASA astronauts Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough, and ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet.
The team spent nearly half a year on the International Space Station, where they helped advance hundreds of science experiments and conduct tech demonstrations. Examples of the work include ultrasonic tweezers, cultured muscle tissue to help study muscle mass loss, the MELFI cold storage facilities used to store samples, and research involving fire in space environments.
The team has one more activity to perform before returning home: photographing the outside of the ISS. This, according to NASA, will involve a "series of burns" to move the spacecraft into the right position for capturing the images, after which point Endeavor will move away from the ISS and begin its descent toward Florida.
The last departure burn will take place at around 5:41 PM ET today, November 8, with the deorbit burn estimated to start at 9:39 PM ET. Assuming everything happens according to schedule, the SpaceX capsule will splash down near Florida at 10:33 PM local time. NASA plans to continue its live coverage of the return journey (video above) until the astronauts are fully recovered from the capsule and returned to land.