After 237 days in space, four astronauts closed the hatch on their SpaceX Dragon capsule at 6:05am EDT on Wednesday, starting NASA’s Crew-12 return. Dragon is due to leave the International Space Station two hours later.
NASA astronaut Jessica Meir will command Dragon, and fellow NASA astronaut Jack Hathaway will pilot it. Sophie Adenot of ESA (European Space Agency) and Andrey Fedyaev of Roscosmos are mission specialists on the flight home.
Dragon will undock from the Harmony module’s space-facing port at 8:05 a.m. EDT. NASA’s undocking coverage begins at 7:45am.
After the broadcast ends, NASA will share audio-only discussions between the crew, the station and flight controllers while Dragon flies away. Live coverage resumes at 10:20am on Thursday. A parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean is set for 11:34am, where NASA and SpaceX personnel will retrieve the capsule and greet the crew.
How do astronauts prepare for return to Earth?
The crew has finished packing Dragon with personal items, cargo and scientific samples, a job that began a couple of weeks ago. They also prepared drink bags mixed with salt tablets, which they will consume before reentry.
This practice, called fluid loading, is part of every crew’s return. NASA says it helps the body adjust to gravity after a long spaceflight.
Seven people remain after Dragon departs. Four of them arrived on October 1 as SpaceX Crew-13 members and are already at work on health research. Jessica Watkins analysed her own blood samples to study the risk of blood clots in space, and Luke Delaney logged his sleep and set up a smart watch for the RelaxPro investigation.
Josh Kutryk of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) had his veins scanned with the Ultrasound 3 device, and Sergey Teteryatnikov of Roscosmos recorded his breathing rate with a neck-worn acoustic sensor.
The other three, NASA’s Anil Menon and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina, began their mission on July 14. Dubrov is the station commander. All seven are due to stay until spring 2027.
