Now you can see these historic moments in photos taken by NASA photographers.
You can see the moment of the Dragon-2 capsule landing in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the action of taking the astronauts and the capsule itself. The landing took place on Sunday at 20:46 Polish time in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola.
The flight itself through the atmosphere, the separation of the capsule's torso, opening the parachute system, landing in the water and picking up the astronauts from the capsule was perfect. Despite the fact that the return of the capsule was completely automatic, the mission was not easy.
Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken were sitting in the Dragon-2 Endeavor capsule, which during its takeover through the atmosphere was rushing at a dizzying speed of almost 30,000 km / h, and its plating heated to 2,000 degrees Celsius.
it is the first U.S. space crew interception operation directly from the sea in 45 years.
The Space Force division, which was responsible for picking up the astronauts from the vehicle, also carried out its operation perfectly.
It took them only a few minutes to reach the capsule. Representatives of the world's space agencies congratulated NASA and SpaceX on the successful completion of the entire demonstration mission.
From now on, the United States, after a 9-year break, i.e. since the end of the shuttle era, can again send astronauts from its territory to the International Space Station. Recall that the launch of the mission took place on May 30 from the famous LC-39A platform, the same from
which more than 50 years ago were flying to the moon under the Apollo program.
A few minutes after the launch of the Falcon-9 rocket, the main part of the rocket successfully landed on a mobile platform, floating on the faults of the Atlantic Ocean.
It will be used in future endeavors.