Crew Dragon with a civilian crew splashed down off the coast of Florida

Crew Dragon, the first all-civilian spacecraft, has landed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. Broadcast was conducted by SpaceX Elon Musk.

As part of the commercial mission Inspiration4, the crew members donned spacesuits and began preparations for the descent several hours before it began. About an hour before the descent, the Crew Dragon’s engines were automatically fired, which allowed it to reduce the altitude of the orbit. At about 19:00 US East Coast time (02:00 Moscow time on Sunday), the ship entered the dense layers of the atmosphere, after a couple of minutes its main parachutes were released. Eight minutes later, the host of the broadcast confirmed the splashdown of Crew Dragon.

The spacecraft stayed in low-earth orbit for about three days. During this time, the crew members have carried out a number of scientific studies. The experiments concerned the effect of weightlessness on the human body, transfers TASS. Their results, according to SpaceX, “will have potential value in maintaining human health both on Earth and during future flights.”

During the flight, the spacecraft reached an orbit with an altitude of 590 km, which is significantly higher than the orbit of the International Space Station (about 420 km). As emphasized on the SpaceX website, the last time a manned spacecraft reached such a high orbit was in 2009, when, as part of the STS-125 mission, the Atlantis shuttle crew serviced the Hubble space telescope, which orbit reached 578 km at its apogee.

The Crew Dragon crew included 29-year-old doctor from Children’s Hospital in Memphis Hayley Arsenault, 51-year-old geology professor Cyan Proctor, 41-year-old Lockheed Martin aerospace corporation Christopher Sembroski, and 38-year-old American billionaire Jared Isaacman, who owns the payment service. for restaurants and hotels Shift4 Payments. He paid for the flight in full to raise $ 200 million for St. Jude, specializing in the treatment of children, including from oncology. Arsenault, who was part of the crew, suffered bone cancer as a child and was treated in this hospital, and now works in it, informs RBC.