Four US, Russian And Japanese Astronauts Return Home, Until Safe!

JAKARTA - Four astronauts returning to Earth managed to land safely with SpaceX's Dragon capsule in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Tampa, Florida, at 21:02 EST.

By safely arriving at Earth, ending the five-month mission that NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) Koichi Wakata, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Anna Kikina on the International Space Station (ISS).

Led by Mann, the first Indian woman or native American to fly into space, the astronauts left the ISS on Saturday morning. Less than 19 hours later, their Dragon capsule was adrift in the sea while waiting for pick-up.

"It was an incredible journey. We were happy to be home," said Mann moments after landing.

NASA deployed a Shannon recovery ship, including two fast boats, tasked with securing Dragon and ensuring the spacecraft is safe for recovery efforts.

As the team quickly completed their work, the recovery ship moved into position to lift Dragon to the main deck of the Shannon ship with the astronauts inside.

The astronauts were taken off the spacecraft and received a medical examination shortly before boarding a helicopter to Tampa to board a plane to Houston, as quoted from the NASA website, Monday, March 13.

The US-Russian-Japan astronaut has spent five months on the ISS since arriving last October. In addition to avoiding space junk, the astronauts also have to deal with leaky Russian capsules.

The leaking capsule was nicknamed Soyuz-MS 22 and docked at the orbiting ISS outpost. However, a replacement aircraft has been delivered to other station crews.

The leaked SOyuz MS-22, stated NASA and Roscomos are unfit to bring the crew back to Earth, thus requiring new plans to bring home NASA astronauts Frank Rubio and Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin. Both NASA and Roscomos suspect micrometeorites may have caused the leak. Currently, those left on the ISS are three Americans, three Russians, and one from the United Arab Emirates.