A SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying four astronauts has returned from the International Space Station, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola, Florida. 

Pensacola

A SpaceX Dragon capsule, carrying four astronauts, has safely returned from the International Space Station. The capsule made its descent and splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola, Florida. 



SpaceX Dragon capsule splashes down off Florida coast

Live pictures as the SpaceX Dragon capsule re-enters the Earth's atmosphere carrying Crew 7. They took off, by the way, August of last year. The six-month mission marks the company's seventh operational human spaceflight to the International Space Station under NASA's Commercial Crew Program. It's also, by the way, the eleventh time that SpaceX has launched humans into orbit. As you can see, the four parachutes have now come out of the capsule. Of course, it de-linked from the International Space Station earlier in the day. This is a manned crew. There are four people on board from Japan, Russia, Europe, and the U.S. You can see the four chutes now as the speed slows on this capsule, as they get closer to splashdown off the coast of Florida. Matt Bloxson, by the way, is standing by as well, an expert on all things SpaceX for us with the eye across tech. With the specifics on what's happening with SpaceX, how consequential is this, Matt? Just put it in context for us, what we're seeing. This is the fifth mission for this particular SpaceX Crew Dragon. This has been transformational in terms of the way we take people into space, and particularly to the International Space Station, as part of this bigger multi-decade program that NASA has, essentially to take people to the Moon and then maybe at some point on to Mars. Getting people to and from the space station, almost like a shuttle, like a ferry, if you like, and reusing these spacecraft brings the cost down, improves the reliability, and is that stepping stone to these more ambitious plans to the Moon and beyond. This is the Dragon capsule. It re-entered, traveling at about 350 miles an hour, we understand, when it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. And at about 18,000 feet, they deployed the first two parachutes. You can see the four parachutes now that were deployed a little later. And they expect to slow down from 350 miles an hour to around 15 miles an hour before that splashdown again off the coast of Florida. SpaceX have managed to get this down to some kind of art form now, Matt, it seems. The consistency is there. This is a crewed mission again and setting themselves up for further success, it seems. That's right, yeah. And they're ahead of the other launch partner, which is Boeing, that's got a Starliner, which is due to come into service to do similar missions to this. Splashdown is there. So we can see splashdown off the coast of Florida. That is the Dragon capsule. This is crew seven that were up on the International Space Station for around six months. The mission took off August of last year, and that looks like a successful splashdown off the coast of Florida then, Matt. Yeah. The next exciting step for SpaceX is the third test launch of their big Starship. You might remember the last two have kind of gone up with big explosions, although they've kind of delivered the kind of milestones they set for themselves. So we might see that next Starship launch as soon as this week. It's all kind of ready to go. And that obviously is the really important step as part of this broader NASA Artemis mission, which is to take people back to the moon, because the Starship, the kind of big silver thing that sits on top of this 120-meter rocket, is the SpaceX lunar lander. So they need to kind of demonstrate that they can send that up into space and they can actually maneuver it, and ultimately maybe kind of 26 potentially is the current target year for the first lunar landing by NASA using either this or the Blue Origin lander. So I imagine this won't be the first to go given SpaceX is ahead of Blue Origin in development. Okay. Really interesting. So Starship is the next one to watch this week potentially as well. So a busy week for SpaceX. Again, as we look at the capsule there floating, the Dragon capsule floating off the coast of Florida, the manned crew, of course, four individuals in there, and of course waiting to be picked up around 19 hours after they undocked from the International Space Station.

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