Crew-12 splashes down off Los Angeles after 237 days on the space station

Four crew members of NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Los Angeles on Thursday after 237 days aboard the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev returned in the Crew Dragon spacecraft named Freedom. Splashdown was at 8:34 a.m. PDT, or 11:34 a.m. EDT.

The spacecraft undocked from the station on Wednesday. After a coast of about 27 hours it fired its thrusters for the deorbit burn, then entered the atmosphere. The heat shield faced temperatures up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Drogue parachutes deployed, followed by the main chutes, and the capsule landed under them in the recovery zone. The recovery ship Shannon, with two fast boats, secured the spacecraft and brought the crew aboard.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the four had spent 237 days living and working in orbit, travelled more than 100 million miles, advanced science, and returned safely because of the work of thousands of people at NASA, SpaceX and the international partners. Meir commanded the mission. Hathaway was the pilot. Adenot and Fedyaev were mission specialists. It was the first flight for Hathaway and Adenot and the second for Fedyaev. Meir's cumulative time in space now stands at 440 days, which places her in the top ten on NASA's list.

During the mission Meir conducted four spacewalks totalling just over 27 hours for maintenance and upgrades on the station. Adenot performed three spacewalks. The crew was relieved by Crew-13, which arrived last week for a six-month rotation. Crew-12 had launched in February. A news conference on the science conducted during the flight is scheduled for 15 October at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The return is the twelfth crew rotation under NASA's Commercial Crew Program with SpaceX, counting the Demo-2 test flight. The cadence has become routine enough that the agency now treats a Pacific splashdown after more than seven months as a standard close to a long-duration expedition. The medical reality is less routine. The four will spend about 45 days in a post-flight conditioning programme to recover from months in weightlessness. Muscle, bone and balance all require deliberate rebuilding.

Isaacman's statement framed the flight as practice for going farther. The immediate record is more specific: 237 days, more than 100 million miles, seven spacewalks between two crew members, and a splashdown that occurred on the published timeline. The Dragon Freedom is now back on the recovery ship. The four people who flew it are beginning the slower work of adjusting to gravity again.