After spending 157 days in space, astronauts on the SpaceX Crew-5 mission, aboard a Dragon spacecraft, splashed down safely on March 11 (or 12 depending on the time zone) off the coast of Tampa, Florida, United States, completing NASA’s fifth commercial mission to the International Space Station.
Astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, both from NASA, Koichi Wakata from JAXA (Japanese space agency) and Anna Kikina from Roscosmos (Russian space agency), reached the sea surface in a parachute-assisted descent. Crews aboard SpaceX recovery ships recovered the spacecraft and astronauts.
Mann, Cassada, Wakata and Kikina traveled 107,143,221 kilometers during their mission and completed 2,512 orbits around the Earth. The Crew-5 mission was the first space flight for Mann, Cassada and Kikina. Wakata has accumulated 505 days in space over the course of his five flights.
This has been the second flight of this Dragon spacecraft, called Endurance.
During their mission, the Crew-5 team participated in various scientific and maintenance activities (including spacewalks) and technology demonstrations.
Roscosmos’s Anna Kikina on far left, NASA’s Josh Cassada and Nicole Mann in the center, and JAXA’s Koichi Wakata on far right, inside the SpaceX Dragon Endurance, already loaded aboard the SpaceX pickup ship. (Photo: NASA/Keegan Barber)
While on station, crew members also tested hydroponic and aeroponic techniques to grow plants without using soil, unleashed the first satellites of Uganda and Zimbabwe, studied how liquids move in a container in simulated lunar gravity to obtain data to improve lunar rover designs and tested an on-demand system to produce specific amounts of food nutrients.
In addition, the astronauts grew dwarf tomatoes to help achieve continuous fresh food production in space and reinstated a bioprinting system as a further step toward the long-term goal of manufacturing complete human organs in space. (Fountain: NCYT de Amazings)