NASA Astronauts Return Home after Historic SpaceX Mission

On August 2, SpaceX’s crew spacecraft, SpaceDragon, which enabled NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley’s venture to the space mission, came to a safe stop on the Gulf of Mexico.

After the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011, the flight to the International Space Station became the first spacecraft crewed from the USA to fly. It was also the first time in history that a market-developed spacecraft brought people into the earth’s orbit.

The ship and crew dragon were quickly transferred to the United States. Navy U-boat Basin, to dump the ship into Cape Canaveral SpaceX facilities. The boosters are typically towed towards the dock of SpaceX, later on into the port, when the SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket arrived in the port after landing on the company’s drone vessel.

“You know, this has been a, quite an odyssey the last five, six, seven, eight years,” Hurley said. “Five years since Bob and I started working on this programme. And to be where we are now, the first crewed flight of Dragon is just unbelievable.”