A Peaceful Landing: Crew 8 Returns to Earth
In the stillness of the early morning at 3:29 a.m. Eastern, the Crew Dragon spacecraft *Endeavour* made a dramatic return to Earth, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico near Pensacola, Florida. Just days earlier, on October 23 at 5:05 p.m. Eastern, *Endeavour* had detached from the International Space Station (ISS), officially closing the Crew-8 mission. Onboard were Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin and NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps. Over the course of 235 days in orbit, including 232 days on the ISS, this crew conducted critical research, fostered international partnerships, and pushed the boundaries of human space exploration before returning home to a hero’s welcome.Post Splashdown ~ The four had been transferred to a nearby medical institution "for additional evaluation," in addition to the routine medical examinations conducted on the recovery ship, NASA said in a statement a few hours after splashdown. NASA stated in a post-splashdown briefing that the crew was doing well following the splashdown, but the agency did not provide any details on what led to that assessment. In their statement, NASA also mentioned that “all crew members were flown to the facility together out of an abundance of caution.”Happy faces at the End~ (Source: Google Images) That 235-day mission is a record for the longest flight of an American crewed spacecraft. Crew-8 set that record first because a delay of more than a month in the launch of Crew-9, which gave NASA time to evaluate what to do with Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft that flew to the station on a crewed test flight. NASA decided to bring Starliner back without a crew and launch just two people on Crew-9 to free up seats for Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams.Crew-9 launched Sept. 28 and arrived at the station a day later. NASA planned what Richard Jones, deputy manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, called an “extended handover” between Crew-8 and Crew-9 to give astronauts time to remove temporary seating arrangements for Wilmore and Williams in Endeavour had there been a need to evacuate the station.“That extra time that we spent in that handover was unfortunate from a weather perspective,” he said at a post-splashdown briefing, because by the time Endeavour was ready to return, Hurricane Milton was in the Gulf, delaying the spacecraft’s return. That storm, followed by a persistent high-pressure system that kicked up winds over splashdown locations on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of Florida, ended up delaying the return by nearly three weeks.There was nothing that NASA and SpaceX could do but wait for conditions to improve. “There’s no lessons learned from that perspective. You just have to wait for that good weather to show up,” he said, noting such delays could be expected during this time of year, near the peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. “In this timeframe, we can expect some extended stays from that perspective.”(Source: Google Images) Earlier this year, NASA and SpaceX announced plans to shift Dragon splashdowns to the California coast starting in 2025. This adjustment is designed to change reentry procedures, ensuring the Dragon’s trunk section burns up over the ocean—after several trunks previously reentered over land, with some fragments reaching the ground. SpaceX also noted that the change is expected to provide better weather conditions for splashdowns.Bill Gerstenmaier, SpaceX vice president for build and flight reliability, said at the briefing that the company was planning to start West Coast splashdowns in early 2025. “When we make that move, the intent will be to stay on the West Coast for recovery and move activities there,” he said.
