NASA’s SpaceX Crew-5, which launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral in early October 2022, has successfully completed its five-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS). The capsule, named “Endurance,” carried a crew of four, including Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata, Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina, and NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada. The crew made history as Mann became the first Native American woman to go to space.
The Crew-5 mission ended with a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico off the west coast of Florida. NASA broadcast a live video stream of the spacecraft’s return, showing the capsule being lifted from the water by a recovery ship.
Before leaving the ISS, the Crew-5 members were met by the successor Crew-6 mission members, who launched from Cape Canaveral on March 1. Less than a week before that, a Soyuz rocket was launched from Kazakhstan to serve as a replacement for MS-22, another Russian vessel that was damaged while attached to the ISS. The three members of MS-22, including an American and two Russians, were originally scheduled to return in late March after about six months in space but will now stay for almost a year.
Cooperation on the ISS has become one of the few remaining areas where the United States and Russia have continued to work together since Moscow invaded Ukraine over a year ago.
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