The four astronauts who make up Crew-5 on the International Space Station returned home Saturday after being in space for five months. They landed in the Gulf of Mexico.
At 2:20 am ET, the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule left the space station. This was the start of the last part of the astronauts’ journey. The spacecraft then turned around and moved back towards Earth. It then plunged back into Earth’s atmosphere and landed just after 9 pm ET Saturday off the coast of Tampa, Florida.
When the crew arrived, rescue ships were ready to pull the capsule out of the water and let the crew off. This was the first time the astronauts had breathed fresh air in nearly 160 days.
The four crew members—NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada, astronaut Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and cosmonaut Anna Kikina of the Russian space agency Roscosmos—took a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule to the space station in October. They have spent the last few months doing research experiments and caring for the 20-year-old laboratory in orbit.
And in the few days before they left, the Crew-5 astronauts turned over control of the space station to the Crew-6 team, which arrived on March 3 to take over.
Crew
Mann was the first Native American woman to go into space. She was a member of the Wailacki tribe and lived on the Round Valley reservation. Like the other astronauts, she spent some time in the area reaching out to the public. Some of what she did was meant to inspire Indigenous children. At a community event in November 2022, Mann showed off a dream catcher, a traditional Native American totem intended to keep bad dreams away. She had brought it with her to the space station.
As #NativeAmericanHeritageMonth comes to a close, we wondered… as @NASA_Astronauts first Native American crewmember on the @Space_Station, did @AstroDuke bring anything with her as a reminder of her tribal heritage? Watch the clip to find out! pic.twitter.com/sofD8FIBN3
— NASA STEM (@NASASTEM) November 30, 2022
Before launch, Mann told reporters, “I am very proud to represent Native Americans and my heritage.” “I think it’s important to celebrate our differences and to know how important it is to work together and be one. When we do that, we can do amazing things.”
Kikina took part in this flight because NASA and Roscosmos made a deal in July 2022 to share rides. Even though geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and Russia have been rising as the war in Ukraine has gotten worse, NASA has said repeatedly that its partnership with Roscosmos is essential to keeping the space station running and continuing the important scientific research done there.
The trip was Mann, Cassada, and Kikina’s first time in space.
Wakata has been on the space shuttle for NASA and the Soyuz spacecraft for Russia. This was the fifth time the Japanese astronaut went into space.