SpaceX finishes another mission as Crew-4's Dragon capsule returns to the Earth at 4:55 p.m. EDT, on October 14. The Capsule named Freedom, safely made a splash down near Jacksonville, Florida. The four astronauts aboard the Dragon capsule came from the International Space Station (ISS) mission, which lasted for five months.

Although, the original time for return has been delayed. A member of Expedition 68 wished the crew "godspeed and safe re-entry," According to Space.com

The Reason for Delay

Originally, the Dragon capsule was supposed to land on Wednesday, October 12th. It was then delayed to Thursday, October 13th, again, due to the persistence of bad weather according to NASA Television. NASA evaluated conditions which include wave height, winds, and other factors to make sure that the splashdown will go on without a hitch.

The four astronauts from the Crew-4 remained at the space station in the meantime, and orbited the laboratory alongside the seven recent arrivals who will also spend months in the ISS. Their third attempt for splashdown was Friday at 11:35 a.m. EDT, but was still delayed but only for 30 minutes, finally undocking at 12:05 p.m. EDT.

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The Landing of the Spacecraft

The Crew Dragon Spacecraft which boarded NASA's Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines, Jessica Watkins, and European Space Agency's Samantha Cristoforetti, safely navigated through the landing milestones safely despite the less-than-desirable conditions concerning the weather. 

The successful mission marks the European woman to command the International Space Station. Samantha Cristoforetti then handed the command of the ISS over to Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev on Tuesday, October 11.

The Crew-4 Mission

The Dragon capsule that held four astronauts was nestled on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on April 27. Since then arriving at the orbiting lab, the crew had conducted more than 200 scientific experiments.

The quartet stayed for 170 days at the International Space Station. In those 170 days, they managed to orbit the Earth 2,720 times, which is a total of 72,168,935 miles. Mostly, they contributed to science and maintenance activities and technology demonstrations, according to NASA.

Cristoforetti, one of the four astronauts in Crew-4, completed two spacewalks to perform station maintenance and upgrades alongside Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev.

The Crew-4 also participated in the following works:

• Continuation of the documentation of the effects of the improvements to the space diet on immune function and gut microbiomes

• Determination of the flammability of a material based on fuel temperature

• Exploring the adverse effects of  equipment noise and microgravity on astronaut hearing

• The study of the increase or decrease of the stability of emulsions due to additives

• Investigating changes in the human immune system induced by microgravity that is similar to aging

• Testing of novel water-reclamation membrane

• Examining materials found like lunar and Martian dust to be made as concrete alternatives

• Contributing to the study of safe, reliable, and cost-effective transportation to and from the International Space Station

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