SpaceX astronauts safely return to earth after International Space Station mission

Four astronauts returned to Earth early Monday after a six-month stay at the International Space Station.

Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Atlantic off the Florida coast.

Less than an hour later, the capsule was lifted out of the ocean and onto a ship.

Returning were NASA astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren “Woody” Hoburg, Russia’s Andrei Fedyaev and the United Arab Emirates’ Sultan al-Neyadi, the first person from the Arab world to spend an extended time in orbit.

For al-Neyadi, the flight was not only his first, but the first long-duration expedition by an Arab and by an Emirati. He is only the second UAE astronaut to fly, after the brief, week-long mission to the space station by Hazza Al Mansoori in 2019. 

Fedyaev is only the second Russian cosmonaut and first Russian man in history to purposely return from space to a water landing. His ride aboard the SpaceX spacecraft was part of a seat swap agreement between NASA and Roscosmos.