A capsule carrying a crew with Türkiye’s first astronaut and three different members splashed down off the coast of Florida on Friday, finishing a return to Earth after a virtually three-week keep on the International Space Station (ISS).
Türkiye celebrated Alper Gezeravcı’s launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Jan. 19 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. A former fighter pilot and captain for Turkish Airlines, he grew to become the primary particular person from his nation to fly to house.
Gezeravcı was joined on the journey by Italian Air Force Col. Walter Villadei, Sweden’s Marcus Wandt, a former fighter pilot chosen as a reserve astronaut by the European Space Agency in 2022, and Michael Lopez-Alegria, their escort.
Lopez-Alegria is a retired NASA astronaut who now works for Axiom Space, the Houston firm that organized the chartered flight.
The crew returned in a SpaceX Dragon capsule that parachuted into the Atlantic off the Florida coast. It was Axiom’s third personal mission to the house station; the fourth is deliberate for later this yr.
Before leaving the house station, Gezeravcı thanked his nation for its “bold and determined decision” to ship a citizen into house as a part of its one hundredth anniversary as a republic.
While in orbit, the astronauts carried out science experiments and chatted with schoolchildren and officers from their international locations. About half of the experiments had been carried out by Gezeravcı alone.
They loved just a few additional days on the house station, ready for the climate to enhance within the splashdown zone.
The capsule undocked from the International Space Station on Wednesday and commenced its return to Earth.
The journey again took the crew round 47 hours.
Source: www.dailysabah.com