Nasa retiree turned private astronaut Peggy Whitson and four crewmates from India, Poland and Hungary departed the International Space Station yesterday and embarked on their return flight to Earth.
A Crew Dragon capsule carrying the quartet undocked from the orbital laboratory at 1115 GMT, ending the latest ISS visit organised by Texas-based startup Axiom Space in partnership with Elon Musk’s California-headquartered rocket venture SpaceX.
The Axiom astronauts, garbed in their helmeted white-and-black flightsuits, were seen in live video footage strapped into the crew cabin shortly before the vehicle separated from the station, orbiting some 418km over the east coast of India.
Whitson, 65, and her three Axiom crewmates – Shubhanshu Shukla, 39, of India, Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, 41, of Poland, and Tibor Kapu, 33, of Hungary – spent 18 days aboard the space station conducting dozens of research experiments in microgravity.
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