Privately funded American space company Axiom Space successfully finished its Ax-4 mission on Tuesday morning, returning astronauts from India, Poland, and Hungary from the International Space Station, and safely splashing down off the Californian coast.
SpaceX Dragon spacecraft “Grace” landed in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego on July 15 at 4:31 a.m. CT / 5:31 a.m. ET, with American Commander Peggy Whitson (Axiom’s director of human spaceflight), Indian pilot Shubhanshu Shukla, and Polish and Hungarian mission specialists Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski and Tibor Kapu emerging from the capsule. They were picked up by the SpaceX and Axiom support teams, who lifted the floating capsule into a “Dragon nest,” then transferred it to a level deck so the astronauts could exit.
You can watch the splashdown moment starting from around the 1:04:00 mark in Axiom’s livestream above, after which you can hear Whitson confirm the crew as safe and “happy to be back.”
The crew left for the ISS on June 25 for a 14-day mission, as NASA describes, “conducting microgravity research, technology demonstrations, and outreach engagements.” According to the space agency, it’s India, Poland, and Hungary’s second human spaceflight mission in history, and the first time these three countries have had astronauts on the ISS.
