Five individuals embark on a journey back to Earth from the space station.
The international crew of five astronauts, including US astronauts Anne McClain (commander) and Nichole Ayers (pilot), JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov (mission specialists), have returned to Earth after a successful 148-day mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
The Crew Dragon capsule, named Endurance, splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California at 11:33 a.m. EDT (8:33 a.m. local time) on August 9, 2025. Recovery teams promptly retrieved the crew, and they were flown to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston for reunions with their families.
During their time on the space station, the astronauts conducted scientific experiments focusing on plant growth and cell reactions to gravity. The mission marked NASA's 10th operational Commercial Crew rotation flight and exemplifies ongoing international cooperation aboard the ISS involving NASA, JAXA, and Roscosmos.
The Crew-10 mission launched on March 14, 2025, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, with arrival at ISS two days later. The descent back to Earth took more than 17 hours for the international crew.
This was the first NASA Commercial Crew mission to splash down in the Pacific Ocean; previous missions splashed down in the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico. NASA provided live coverage of the return and splashdown event via multiple platforms, and post-splashdown briefings took place.
The launch of Crew-10 allowed two US astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, to return home after being unexpectedly stranded on the space station for nine months. The Boeing Starliner, which was intended to return Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, developed propulsion problems and was deemed unfit to fly back, leaving them stranded in space.
NASA announced this week that Butch Wilmore has decided to retire after 25 years of service at the US space agency. Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke, Kimiya Yui, and Oleg Platonov are currently on a six-month mission on the ISS, having boarded it last week.
The astronauts will be able to breathe Earth's air again for the first time in months only after the capsule is recovered. The Commercial Crew Program was created to succeed the Space Shuttle era by partnering with private industry. The Dragon capsule, owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX company, detached from the ISS at 2215 GMT on Friday.
- According to the announcement this week, retired NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore, who returned home after being unexpectedly stranded on the space station for nine months during the Crew-10 mission, is choosing to retire after 25 years of service at the US space agency.
- The successful return of the Crew-10 mission, which included US astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, marked a milestone in space-and-astronomy, technology, and general-news, with their splashdown in the Pacific Ocean serving as the first NASA Commercial Crew mission to do so, after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
