Endurance Departs: Four ISS Astronauts Begin Final 30-Hour Homecoming
Friday evening turned into a quiet yet momentous turning point off the Florida coast: the hatch of Crew-10’s Endurance capsule closed, the forward docking collar lights blinked from green to amber, and at 6:15 p.m. Eastern the spacecraft slipped gently away from the International Space Station.
By Saturday morning the same vessel—minus its orbital berth—should be bobbing in the wide Pacific, wrapping up 148 days of science, maintenance, and sunrise chasers.
Who Were the Travelers?
- Commander Anne McClain: NASA astronaut, helicopter test pilot, and lead EVA operator on this tour.
- Pilot Nichole Ayers: Air Force fighter jet veteran and the mission’s flight-plan author.
- Takuya Onishi: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) senior crew member, logistics mastermind during Visiting Vehicle weeks.
- Kirill Peskov: Roscosmos cosmonaut on his debut flight, responsible for Russian segment power upgrades.
Final Good-byes, Then Silence
The departing quartet floated through Destiny lab’s narrow corridor at 5:20 p.m., trading bear-hugs with their Expedition 72 successors.
A final wave, a few muted fist-bumps through gloves, and the last hatch sealed with a metallic click. Ninety minutes later, 12 spring-loaded hooks retracted in perfect unison, releasing Endurance to drift 150 metres ahead of station before a brief thruster pulse nudged it onto the de-orbit arc.
Splashdown Timeline—Saturday Pacific Time
- 02:17 a.m. – 20-minute de-orbit burn begins.
- 02:57 a.m. – Trunk module jettisoned.
- 03:23 a.m. – Drogues deploy, followed by four main chutes.
- 03:35 a.m. (approx.) – Pacific touchdown south-west of San Diego.
The foursome will then ride a recovery ship back to shore for medical checks, gravity re-adaptation, and—quite likely—the first fresh salads they’ve tasted since July.
Crew Dragon Endurance Begins Homeward Glide After 200-Day Stay in Orbit
Endurance gently separated from the International Space Station this morning, the unmistakable sign that Earth’s latest long-duration crew is finally heading home. Their target: a controlled splash in the calm Pacific just south of California.
Saturday’s Splashdown Countdown
- Time of re-entry: 11:33 a.m. EDT
- Window length: <15 minutes of atmospheric flight
- Recovery fleet: Two fast boats already on station near San Diego
- Weather outlook: Forecasters expect gentle swells and almost no cloud cover
The four returning astronauts will feel five g’s, then four giant parachutes will bloom overhead to slow the capsule to a gentle landing. Inside, the crew has stowed 240 kilograms of scientific samples—tissue chips, plant roots and protein crystals that six months of weightlessness has coaxed into rare forms.
Words of Leave-Taking from the Station
In Tuesday’s farewell broadcast, flight engineer Anne McClain held up a small patchwork of mission badges and admitted the team’s emotions were “overflowing.”
“We may never float here again, so every sunrise counted twice,” she said. “Down below, people are divided; up here, borders vanish. Let our mission be proof that cooperation isn’t science fiction—it’s physics.”
Commander Onishi followed by handing a hand-crafted aluminum key—no larger than a thumb—to cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov, symbolically passing the ISS baton and whispering, “Your turn to light the engines.”
Expedition 73: An Anniversary Year
Ryzhikov reminded listeners that history was hovering over their helmets:
- 50 years since the first American-Soviet link-up: the Apollo–Soyuz handshake
- 25 years of continuous human presence on the ISS will be celebrated this November
“On Earth, nations argue,” he observed. “But above Earth, we build each other’s life-support panels and share our last tubes of strawberries. That, too, is politics—just the peaceful kind.”
A Brief Overlap of Generations
Endurance undocked only six days after fresh crewmembers arrived on the Endeavour. New commander Zena Cardman, joined by pilot Mike Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Roscosmos’ Oleg Platonov, will guide the laboratory into its next chapter. Their spacecraft, still smelling of factory fresh paint, now sits on the U.S. segment’s forward port like a silver sentry.
Meanwhile, the Endurance crew have one more burn ahead of them before Pacific waters close over their charred heat shield, ending a chapter that began 200 days ago and proving, once again, that every homecoming begins with a quiet goodbye among the stars.
A Marathon Handover: How 147 Days in Space Ends with a California Splash
The Final Briefing Inside the Station
Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, pilot Nichole Ayers, commander Anne McClain and Japanese spacefarer Takuya Onishi floated shoulder-to-shoulder in Destiny lab on Thursday, quietly absorbing the last round of tips from the outgoing residents:
- Ryzhikov’s daily checklist – the subtle, five-second pause that keeps the toilet vacuum from clogging
- Zubritsky’s “one-finger” filter trick – how to re-seat an air-scrubber cartridge without losing a screw
- Dr. Jonny Kim’s bedtime protocol – why dimming every light at T-90 minutes beats melatonin tablets every time
A Storm-Gifted Extra Day
When the wind said “not yet”
High coastal gusts scrubbed what should have been a Wednesday farewell, sliding the undocking to Friday morning. For Crew 10, that meant one bonus sunrise over the Sahara and a final shared breakfast of borscht, rehydrated peaches and cold coffee squirted from silver pouches.
The 17½-Hour Descent
Timeline to Splashdown
09:14 EDT Friday – Hooks retract
10:39 EDT Saturday – 10-minute de-orbit burn begins
11:33 EDT Saturday – Endurance slices into the Pacific off Southern California’s coast
On the way down, the capsule will tilt in a shallow arc, shedding 17,500 mph across the dense layers above Baja. Inside, the four astronauts will feel the tug of gravity for the first time since March—gently at two g, then a brief spike to four g before parachutes bloom like orange lanterns.
Mission by the Numbers
- Duration: 147 days, 16 hours, 29 minutes
- Orbits completed: 2,368
- Miles traveled: 62.8 million
- Launch date: March 14 – Florida’s storied 39A pad
- Landing first: Crew 10 is NASA’s inaugural splashdown in the Pacific, a shift designed to drop the discarded trunk far from any coastline.
Two private Crew Dragons already proved the Pacific route earlier this year; on Saturday, recovery ships Megan and Shannon will be waiting at station-keeping distance, ready to winch the spacecraft—and four newly-minted Earthlings—aboard within an hour of touchdown.
