Watch Live: SpaceX Crew-10 headed for morning splashdown return to Earth
The four members of the SpaceX Crew-10 mission climbed aboard the Crew Dragon Endurance and departed the International Space Station on Friday evening for an overnight trip back to Earth.
NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov launched to the station back on March 14 from Kennedy Space Center arriving a day later.
After 4 1/2 months on board, they undocked at 6:15 p.m. and are nearing their 17 1/2-hour trip home for a planned splashdown off the coast of California at 11:33 a.m. Saturday.
“Crew is ready to return to the atmosphere, ” Crew-10 commander McClain said with about an hour to go before landing.
“SpaceX copies. We’re excited to welcome your home,” replied the crew operations resource engineer at SpaceX Mission Control.
Dragon was prepped for its deorbit burn having performed a leak check and with astronauts in their spacesuits. The deorbit burn lasts more than 17 minutes to line it up to enter Earth’s atmosphere, then jettison its trunk over the Pacific to expose the spacecraft’s heat shield that will endure temperatures near 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit as it slows from as much as 17,500 mph to an eventual parachute-assisted, gentle 15 mph landing.