Crew Dragon Capsule Rides Pacific Waves Home After Lengthy Orbit Stay
A Dawn-to-Dusk Return
The crew day began 250 miles above Earth and ended amid gentle swells just west of San Diego.
Endurance, SpaceX’s resilient Crew Dragon, carried four explorers back to their home planet on Saturday, completing a textbook re-entry and splashdown at 11:33 a.m. EDT.
Passengers on the Final Leg
- Anne McClain – Mission commander, leading orbital research during her second flight.
- Nichole Ayers – Pilot whose steady hands guided undocking and re-entry.
- Takuya Onishi – Veteran Japanese astronaut, finishing his longest continuous stay in micro-gravity.
- Kirill Peskov – Russian cosmonaut closing the loop on crew exchanges between Roscosmos and NASA.
Timeline From Lab to Lifeboats to Ocean
Sixteen hundred heartbeats after detaching from the Harmony docking port, the capsule slipped through the atmosphere’s thin veil. Thermal tiles guarded the cabin against 3,000-degree plasma, while drogue and then main parachutes blossomed overhead. The craft descended like a dragonfly, its descent speed cushioned to a walking pace before kissing the Pacific in a soft white spray.
Recovery Scene
Waiting recovery teams encircled Endurance within minutes. A crane lifted the scorched vessel onto SpaceX’s recovery vessel, where medical crews checked the crew’s vital signs—every parameter confirmed healthy.
Mission Totals
- Time in orbit: 157 days
- Earth orbits: 2,512
- Science experiments run: 212
- Supply drops received: 3 cargo Dragon plus 2 Progress craft
With salt-sprayed handshakes and smiles, the quartet stepped onto the ship’s deck—back under open skies after five exhilarating months of star-filled nights and sixteen sunsets a day.
Endurance Completes Final Descent Over the Pacific
From the door of an orbiting news helo, camera crews caught Crew Dragon Endurance sliding through cloud breaks at 2,600 ft, its white hull flashing in the midday sun. The capsule traced a tight arc toward aquamarine waters just west of the San Diego shoreline Saturday.
Precision Recovery at Sea
- Rapid response vessels ringed the splashdown zone, engines idling.
- Within three minutes, teams had tethered the bobbing craft and draped stabilizing gear across the heat-shield.
- The articulated arm of the primary recovery ship rose, cradling Endurance like a newborn and nestling it against a foam-cushioned deck.
First Steps after 148 Days
The side hatch swung open to reveal two beaming crew members in charcoal flight suits. One by one, each gave a quick thumbs-up before accepting gloved hands from medics. They settled onto folding stretchers—feet dangling, eyes squinting against solid-Earth gravity after nearly five months of weightlessness. Medical staff ran checks on heart rate, balance, and blood pressure; every indicator flashed “green.”
From Ocean to Tarmac to Texas
- A rescue-ready helicopter, rotors still humming, waited on the starboard deck.
- All four astronauts climbed aboard, strapping in for the 15-minute hop back to land.
- At a coastal helipad converted for the day, a NASA Gulfstream stood fueled and sealed. Thirty minutes later it lifted off—destination: Ellington Field at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
By sunset, the crew had traded Pacific swells for Texas soil, still grinning at the novelty of unaccustomed weight.
Splashdown Cheers: How Crew-10’s 154-Day Orbit Ended in Pacific Waves
Commander McClain’s Fist-Pump Finale
Anne McClain couldn’t hold back the jubilation the moment parachutes kissed the clouds. Throwing both fists skyward, the NASA veteran led her four-person crew in a mid-ocean celebration, rounding off 154 days of living among the stars aboard the International Space Station.
The Delays That Became Part of the Story
- Original target: Wednesday afternoon
- Actual undocking: 6:15 p.m. Friday, pushed back 48 hours by fierce headwinds off southern California
- Mission Control’s verdict: “Better two calmer days than one rough one”
Farewell Burn: From 250 Miles Up to a Gentle Pacific Swim
Once the Crew Dragon slid half a kilometer from the station, the crew savored microgravity for a final stretch—hot coffee, last glimpses of auroras, and bittersweet good-byes to their orbiting home. Then the real choreography began:
- Orbit-shaping burn – Draco thrusters lit at 10:39 a.m., firing for 17 minutes 8 seconds to bleed off 257 mph of orbital speed.
- Plasma fireball – At 17,000 mph—roughly 1.5 km every heartbeat—Endeavour pierced the atmosphere and flared into a glowing shell of ionized gases.
- Dual chute bloom – Drogues first, then four bright main canopies slowed the craft to a walking pace before splashdown.
Homecoming, Ocean-Style
By 10:57 a.m. local time, waves lapped the hull and recovery crews hoisted the capsule into the waiting ship. Grins, hugs, and a well-earned fist pump—McClain’s signature—marked the finish line of a mission that doubled as a bridge to future deep-space voyages.
Crew Dragon Endurance Heads Home After Sunset Farewell
Endurance slipped silently away from the International Space Station at twilight on Friday, beginning a 17-hour-and-a-half fall through the darkness that ends with an early-morning Pacific splashdown.
Fresh Faces Remain in Orbit
- Zena Cardman now chairs the station as Crew 11 commander.
- Beside her: veteran astronaut Mike Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui, and cosmonaut Oleg Platonov.
- The station also hosts the Soyuz MS-27 trio—Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritsky, and Jonny Kim—still fresh from their April launch.
Four-Day Handover in Zero-G
Before Endurance left, Anne McClain and her three crewmates spent 96 weightless hours touring the newcomers through every hatch and system. Only when lights, laptops, and science racks had all been fully transferred did the departing crew float inside Endurance, seal the hatch, and retreat.
Pacific First for NASA-Sponsored Crew
Up until now, NASA’s own missions had always returned to the Atlantic, splashing off the Florida coast. By shifting Endurance to the open Pacific, SpaceX ensures the Crew Dragon’s expendable “trunk” section—jettisoned minutes before re-entry—will come down safely far from population centers.
- Two earlier commercial missions already validated the Pacific route this year.
- Crew 10 is the first fully NASA-sponsored flight to complete the same itinerary.
- The change trims risk for seaside communities and leaves a broader safety margin for recovery teams.
Endurance’s final descent is now on countdown; a pre-dawn landing in Pacific waters awaits the four space travelers who just handed the keys to a new crew above the world they are about to rejoin.
