Three NASA astronauts and a Roscosmos cosmonaut have embarked on their journey back to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon, undocking from the International Space Station.
NASA astronauts Matt Dominick, Mike Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin entered the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft docked to the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday, October 23, 2024.
A short time later, at 3:24 p.m. EDT, the hatch closed between the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and the ISS in preparation for the return of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission.
At 5:05 p.m. EDT, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft undocked from the forward-facing port of ISS’s Harmony module.
After performing a series of departure burns to move away from the space station, Dragon will conduct multiple orbit-lowering maneuvers, jettison the trunk, and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere for splashdown off the coast of Florida approximately 34 hours later on Friday, October 25.