Crew-12 splashes down off Los Angeles after 237 days on the space station
The Crew-12 mission ended in the Pacific Ocean, where recovery teams met the SpaceX Crew Dragon Freedom off Los Angeles. Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, Sophie Adenot and Andrey Fedyaev had spent 237 days on the International Space Station. Their work included stem-cell production and studies of blood flow in spaceflight. Standard medical screening follows the return, with a later briefing planned on their scientific work.
Science··Midday
The Dragon capsule Freedom lands in the Pacific off Los Angeles
NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 mission ended with a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Recovery teams met the Crew Dragon capsule Freedom off Los Angeles, bringing Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency and her three crewmates back from nearly eight months aboard the International Space Station.[1], [2]
On board were NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. They lived and worked on the station for 237 days and completed thousands of orbits of Earth. The mission launched in February and docked with the station the following day.[1]
Four spacewalks for Meir, three for Adenot
Meir completed four spacewalks during the mission and Adenot completed three. Adenot became the first French woman to work outside the station. It was the second spaceflight for Meir and Fedyaev and the first for Hathaway and Adenot.[1]
Medical checks come first, the science results later
The crew will undergo standard medical screening after the return. Work aboard the station included making stem cells for possible cell-based therapies, preparing intravenous fluid on demand for future missions, studying how a pneumonia-causing bacterium may be linked to longer-term heart damage, and examining nutrition and physical traits that may influence blood flow in spaceflight. NASA published no measured results from these experiments.[1]
NASA says the crew will describe its science work at a later briefing. The capsule's return does not end the analysis of space experiments: researchers will weigh the station findings against comparisons made on Earth.[1]
