The Crew Dragon spacecraft with a commercial crew of four astronauts successfully splashed down on Tuesday in the Pacific Ocean off the southern coast of California after undocking from the International Space Station (ISS), SpaceX said.
The descent capsule splashed down at 02:31 Pacific Time near San Diego.
The tourists’ flight to the ISS as part of the Axiom-4 (Ax-4) mission was scheduled to last two weeks, starting with their arrival at the station on June 25. The return was originally expected on July 10, but the date was postponed due to adverse sea conditions.
The crew included Axiom astronaut and former NASA member Peggy Whitson (commander), pilot and Indian representative Shubhanshu Shukla, and specialists from Hungary and Poland, Tibor Kapu and Sławosz Uźnanski-Wisniewski.
During Axiom Space’s fourth commercial mission, the tourists conducted about 60 scientific experiments on board the ISS.
The first commercial mission, Axiom-1, took place in April 2022. Although the project was supposed to last 10 days, the team stayed an extra week due to bad weather off the coast of Florida.
The cost of the flight for each Axiom-1 participant was estimated at $55 million. In the future, Axiom Space and SpaceX plan to conduct two to three such missions annually.
