Four astronauts have undocked from the International Space Station, beginning their return to Earth after a 237-day mission, while their replacements begin a six-month tour.
The silence of orbit was broken early Wednesday as four travelers began the long process of coming home. At 8:05 a.m. Eastern Time. the Crew Dragon “Freedom” backed away from the Harmony module’s space-facing port. drifting away from the station as it sailed 260 miles above the clouds covering Cuba and the Bahamas.
Inside. commander Jessica Meir and pilot Jack Hathaway managed the controls. flanked by European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. They leave behind the quiet hum of a lab that served as their home for 237 days. a mission that saw them circle the planet 3. 792 times and cover nearly 101 million miles. As the capsule pulled away. completing an automated loop around the station. Meir radioed a final message to the teams in Houston. at SpaceX. and across the globe: “We have had the most incredible of expeditions… and we will never forget it.”.
The departure is the final act of a long-duration stay. For Meir. who has now logged 442 total days in space across two missions. the experience included four spacewalks during this tour alone. Adenot added her own legacy to the mission. completing three back-to-back spacewalks—one alongside Meir and two with NASA astronaut Anil Menon.
While the Crew 12 team prepares for a nine-minute and 20-second thruster firing at 10:46 a.m. ET on Thursday—a final push before a 11:34 a.m. splashdown off the California coast—the station life continues without interruption. The crew that arrived Oct. 1, known as Crew 13, has already settled in for their own six-month tour. That team includes commander Jessica Watkins, pilot Luke Delaney, Canadian astronaut Joshua Kutryk, and cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov.
They join the existing team of Soyuz MS-29 commander Pyotr Dubrov. cosmonaut Anna Kikina. and NASA astronaut Anil Menon. who launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 14 and are slated for an eight-month stay. In a quiet ceremony Sunday. the station’s future was formally handed over when Meir presented a symbolic key to the facility to Dubrov. He noted the timing, which fell on the 69th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik on Oct. 4, calling the station the greatest symbol of international cooperation.
Before parting ways, the two groups shared a “huggle,” a circular group embrace that felt heavy with the transition. It was. as Meir described it. a bittersweet shift from the life they built among the stars back to the families and teams waiting on the ground. By Thursday morning. the physical connection to that home will end. leaving the new crew to steward the station in the vacuum of space.
International Space Station Crew Dragon space travel NASA SpaceX space exploration Jessica Meir astronauts