NASA and SpaceX's Crew-12 mission splashed down in the Pacific off Los Angeles on Thursday, with the Crew Dragon spacecraft Freedom returning four crew members from the International Space Station.

The splashdown occurred at 11:34 AM EDT on October 8, or 8:34 AM PDT. The crew included NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Russian space agency astronaut Andrey Fedyaev. Recovery boats first secured the spacecraft with two fast boats, then lifted the spacecraft and crew onto the main deck, allowing the crew to exit the capsule.

The four spent 237 days on the station, traveled over 100 million miles, and completed four spacewalks. Meir has a total of 440 days in space, ranking her in the top ten for cumulative days at NASA. This was Meir and Fedyaev's second flight, while Hathaway and Adenot flew for the first time. The mission launched from Florida at 5:15 AM EST on February 13 and docked the next day. It separated from the Harmony module at 11:05 AM EDT on October 7.

The station has been taken over by Crew-13. A post-return science briefing is scheduled for 3:30 PM EDT on October 15 at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman stated that successfully completing such round trips is essential for advancing human spaceflight. Reports also mentioned the recovery ship Shannon and the crew's experiments on stem cells, blood flow, protein crystals, bone density, and new-generation spacesuit testing.

The spacecraft performed a separation and deorbit burn after leaving the station, jettisoned the trunk section, and re-entered the atmosphere, landing in the ocean off California using parachutes. Following the splashdown broadcast, NASA scheduled a media teleconference at 1:15 PM EDT to discuss the return and the launch of the next cargo resupply ship.

The buyers are NASA and international partners purchasing seats on a per-flight basis, while the seller is SpaceX, which provides the spacecraft, recovery ship, and reuse processes. The event was driven by a planned end of a stay, not an accident. Funding remains at the flight and recovery nodes of the commercial crew contract. The benefit is the recovery of Freedom for continued scheduling in the crewed Dragon fleet, while the pressure is on subsequent seats that rely on this return for rotation. The station still has Crew-13's Dragon, Northrop Grumman's Cygnus, as well as Soyuz and two Progress spacecraft.

Source: Public Information