Two NASA astronauts returned to Earth on Sunday, retro-style splashdown, their capsule parachuting into the Gulf of Mexico to close out an unprecedented test flight by Elon Musk’s SpaceX company.
Notably, it was the first splashdown by U.S. astronauts in last 45 years. Now with the first commercially built and operated spacecraft to carry people to and from orbit. The return clears the way for another SpaceX crew launch as early as next month and possible tourist flights next year.
“Welcome back to planet Earth, and thanks for flying SpaceX,” said Mission Control from SpaceX headquarters.
“It’s a little bit overwhelming to see everybody here considering the things that have gone on the last few months since we’ve been off planet,” Mr. Hurley said after arriving back home in Houston on Sunday evening, where they were greeted by a small masked-gathering of family and officials, including Mr. Musk.
“I’m not very religious, but I prayed for this one,” he said.
“We are entering a new era of human spaceflight where NASA is no longer the purchaser, owner and operator of all the hardware. We’re going to be a customer — one customer of many,” Mr. Bridenstine said from Johnson Space Center in Houston. “I would love to see a fleet of crew Dragons servicing not just the International Space Station but also commercial space stations.”
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell called the mission a springboard to “doing even harder things,” like collaborating on astronaut flights to the moon and then Mars.
“There’s no question, it was an enormous relief after months of anxiety making sure we could bring Bob and Doug back home safely,” Ms. Shotwell said.
Meanwhile, the last time NASA astronauts returned from space to water was on July 24, 1975, in the Pacific, the scene of most splashdowns, to end a joint US-Soviet mission known as Apollo-Soyuz.
The Mercury and Gemini crews in the early to mid-1960s parachuted into the Atlantic, while most of the later Apollo capsules hit the Pacific.
