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Crew-10 Splashes Down Safely Off California Coast, Ending Historic Mission
The Crew-10 astronauts returned to Earth on Saturday, splashing down off the Southern California coast after a successful four-month mission aboard the International Space Station. The Dragon spacecraft, named Endurance, undocked from the ISS Friday evening at 6:30 p.m. EDT, following a slight delay due to high winds in the splashdown zone.
The crew, comprised of NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, made history with this mission. Their return marked the first Pacific splashdown for a crewed SpaceX mission, facilitated by the relocation of SpaceX’s recovery ship Shannon to the area.
After a journey through Earth’s atmosphere, Endurance splashed down at 8:33 a.m. PDT Saturday. The crew and scientific samples were retrieved and flown to Houston.
Crew-10’s mission began on March 14 with a launch from Kennedy Space Center’s Pad 39A. They arrived at the ISS two days later, taking over from the previous crew, which included astronauts who had arrived on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft.
During a farewell ceremony on the ISS, Commander Anne McClain expressed the crew’s gratitude for the ground teams who supported their mission, stating, “We truly are very humbled to represent humanity, and we hope that we can be a reminder to others of the goodness of humanity and what we really can accomplish when we work together.”
This marked Endurance’s fourth mission since 2021. SpaceX’s Crew-11, consisting of Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke, Kimiya Yui, and Oleg Platonov, arrived at the space station on Saturday, continuing the ongoing presence of humans in low-Earth orbit.