Privately-funded crew returns to Earth after space station visit

America's most experienced astronaut and three international crewmates plunged back to Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule early Tuesday, closing out a 20-day commercial flight to the International Space Station with a foggy Pacific Ocean splashdown.

Retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, the U.S. record holder for time in space, Indian test pilot Shubhanshu Shukla, Polish astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski and Hungarian engineer Tibor Kapu undocked from the space station early Monday.

After nearly a full day coasting around the planet while waiting for the orbit to line up with the re-entry trajectory, the Crew Dragon's forward Draco thrusters fired for nearly 18 minutes starting at 4:37 a.m. EDT Tuesday to drop the ship out of orbit.

Plunging back into the discernible atmosphere on a northwest-to-southeast trajectory, the capsule rapidly decelerated in a blaze of re-entry heating before parachutes deployed to lower the ship to a gentle splashdown just west of San Diego at 5:31 a.m.

Over the next hour, SpaceX support crews "safed" the Crew Dragon, hauling it aboard the recovery ship Shannon, opening the side hatch and helping the returning fliers out of the spacecraft as they began re-adjusting to gravity after their three-week sojourn in weightlessness.

All four appeared healthy and in good spirits, smiling and waving as they exited.

This was the fourth so-called "private astronaut mission" to the International Space Station sponsored by Houston-based Axiom Space, which works with NASA to provide privately-funded research trips to the station.

The company charges up to $70 million or so per seat to carry non-NASA astronauts, professional researchers and others to the space station who might otherwise have no other route to orbit.

Axiom Space is using the missions to gain experience as the company presses ahead with plans to build a commercial space station that will provide a destination in low-Earth orbit for NASA and other nations after the International Space Station is retired in 2030.

Throughout their two-week mission, Whitson and her crewmates carried out a full slate of science research and technology demonstrations, along with interactive educational events with students and others in the crew's home countries. Researchers from 31 countries are helping evaluate data from the Ax-4 experiments and technology demonstrations.

Whitson, a retired NASA astronaut, is the most experienced American space flier, with 695 days and six hours and 48 minutes in orbit during five spaceflights -- three for NASA and two for Axiom Space. She now ranks eighth in the world for most time in space behind seven Russian cosmonauts.

She also logged 10 spacewalks during her earlier flights, making her the most experienced female spacewalker and seventh in the world overall.

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