After 170 days in space, SpaceX‘s Dragon and Crew-4 astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, Jessica Watkins, and Samantha Cristoforetti returned to Earth and splashed down off the coast of Florida at 4:55 p.m. ET on Friday, October 14.
“Welcome home Crew-4! This international crew has spent nearly six months on the International Space Station conducting science for the benefit of all. Their work aboard the orbiting laboratory will help prepare future explorers for future space missions,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
“Working and living on the space station is the opportunity of a lifetime, but it also requires these explorers to make sacrifices, especially time away from loved ones. Kjell, Bob, Jessica and Samantha, thank you for your contributions over the past six months to science, innovation, and discovery!”
The journey began when Falcon 9 launched Dragon and the Crew-4 astronauts to the orbiting laboratory on Wednesday, April 27 at 3:52 a.m. ET from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The next day …
On Saturday, October 15 at 1:22 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 launched the Eutelsat HOTBIRD 13F mission to a geosynchronous transfer orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
This was the third launch and landing of this booster, which previously supported the launch of CRS-24 and one Starlink mission.
Eutelsat Hotbird-13F and its sister satellite Hotbird-13G are slated to replace three existing satellites at the 13 degrees East longitude geosynchronous orbital slot. These satellites will provide up to 1,000 television channels, including 4K video, to over 160 million homes in Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.
After stage separation, the first stage landed on Just Read the Instructions the droneship, which will be stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
