FLORIDA — A homecoming deferred is now complete as the four members of the joint NASA-SpaceX Crew-4 mission successfully splashed down off Florida on Friday afternoon.

Previous attempts to return the four-member team on Wednesday and Thursday were delayed because of poor weather conditions off the coast of Florida. But conditions were just right as the Dragon spacecraft had a gentle splashdown around 4:50 p.m. EDT off the coast of Jacksonville. 

The recovery vessel named “Megan” met them to scoop the Dragon capsule out of the water. It was previously named “GO Searcher" but was renamed in February in honor of NASA astronaut Megan McArthur, the second female astronaut flown by SpaceX who flew on the Crew-2 mission.

Saying final goodbyes

But after spending 170 days in space, it was time to go home. After saying their final goodbyes on Friday morning, former International Space Station (ISS) Commander and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti — along with NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Jessica Watkins and Bob Hines — climbed aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom and undocked from the International Space Station to start their return.

“We’ve done a lot of science, taken in some amazing views, but now, we’re excited to get home to our families. We are immensely grateful to all the people that were a part of this journey,” Lindgren said during a media briefing on Tuesday. Lindgren is the Crew-4 mission commander.

They brought with them about 500 pounds of return cargo. Undocking was shifted 30 minutes from its original time on Friday at 11:35 a.m. EDT to an undocking at 12:05 p.m. EDT. 

The finale of the crew’s time on orbit was a busy one. They welcomed a Russian Soyuz spacecraft crewed by NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and cosmonauts Dmitry Petelin and Sergey Prokopyev on Sept. 21. Three other cosmonauts departed a week after that. 

Then on Oct. 5, the Crew-5 team launched from Kennedy Space Center, arriving at the ISS with three astronauts and one cosmonaut the following day.

Watkins, who was the first African-American woman to serve a long-duration mission aboard the station, said that as a geologist who primarily studied Mars, this mission was a delight since it allowed her time to take a closer look at Earth.

“To be able to see Earth from essentially a planetary perspective, particularly field sites that I have done work in in the past, particularly Death Valley, Calif. area, being able to see that same kind of place where we’ve done ground-truthing, in-situ work and then be able to see it from a remote sensing orbital perspective and be able to marry those two has been really, really enriching and exciting for me,” Watkins said.

And while the space perspective has been amazing, the crew said they are ready to return to the comforts of Earth-bound living once again.

“Certainly some ice cream, some pizza, but above all, you nailed it, it’s seeing family and friends when we get home,” Hines said on Tuesday. “Our families make such big sacrifices for us to be able to come up here and do this amazing thing and you know, to benefit humanity, but getting back and seeing them, getting those first few hugs when we get back is really going to be awesome.”

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