CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Four astronauts returned to Earth from the International Space Station on Thursday after rushing there eight months ago to replace an ill colleague and his crew. SpaceX brought back American, French and Russian pilots with a splashdown in the Pacific off the coast of Los Angeles. NASA’s Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, France’s Sophie Adenot and Russia’s Andrey Fedyaev left the orbiting laboratory on Wednesday, eager to reunite with their families after a long separation. Their replacements arrived three weeks late due to capsule repairs, which halted this crew’s return home. They couldn’t wait to feel the breeze on their faces, take a shower and, at least for Adenot, dive back into water sports. “We are very excited to be back on planet Earth after an incredible mission to the International Space Station,” Meir said over the radio moments after landing. While still in orbit, he said the crew had “many mixed and swirling emotions” and would miss the “extraordinary views of our home planet.” The four emerged from their capsule within the hour, waving and pumping their fists in the air aboard the SpaceX recovery ship. After a helicopter ride to the coast, they were going to head to Houston. Meir and his crew left the planet in February to replace four station occupants who were sent home early after one of them, NASA’s Mike Fincke, now retired, fell ill. It was NASA’s first medical evacuation in 65 years of human spaceflight. The new quartet proudly watched two months later as the Artemis II astronauts flew around the moon. They also celebrated America’s 250th birthday there, with Meir joining the Boston Pops with his piccolo for a Fourth of July concert. Meir participated in four spacewalks, while Adenot ventured outside three times for maintenance and upgrades at the 28-year-old outpost. Amid all the work, the astronauts found time to have fun, hosting a dance party last month and holding regular cooking demonstrations in aprons and a chef’s hat. Meir presented an instructional video for curly-haired spacewomen like herself, while Hathaway kept his bushy mustache, a space rarity, groomed to perfection. He grew a naval aviator-style mustache before launching into orbit as a way to honor his ties to the Navy, and he found it no more difficult to maintain it in weightlessness than on Earth. Some ground controllers grew mustaches in solidarity. Will his mustache disappear now that his mission is over? “It’s become kind of my brand here,” Hathaway said in August, “so I don’t know if it’ll go away right away or I’ll end up keeping it for a while.” Seven astronauts remain aboard the space station, representing the United States, Russia and Canada. The outpost has welcomed 298 visitors from 26 countries since its doors opened in 2000, according to NASA’s count. Key findings in this article were generated with the help of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article itself is written solely by humans.
