The crew of Crew-2 will land off Florida, before the arrival on board the ISS of the four astronauts for the next mission, whose take-off has been delayed several times, in particular because of the weather.
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News from the ISS. Frenchman Thomas Pesquet and three other astronauts will leave the International Space Station on Sunday, November 7, and land off Florida “not earlier” that Monday at 13:14 (time of Paris), after spending more than six months in space, NASA announced on Friday.
The crew of Crew-2, made up of Thomas Pesquet, the Japanese Akihiko Hoshide and the Americans Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, will thus return to Earth before the arrival on board the ISS of the four astronauts of Crew-3, including the take-off was delayed several times, in particular because of the weather. “As we prepare to leave there is a bit of a bittersweet feeling”Thomas Pesquet said earlier Friday at a press conference from the Space Station. “We might never come back to see the ISS again, and it truly is a magical place.”
The 43-year-old French astronaut is completing the second mission of his career in orbit, “Alpha”. He arrived aboard the ISS with his teammates on April 24. During his previous “Proxima” mission, between 2016 and 2017, he landed in the Kazakh steppes. The landing will therefore be a first for him.
It should “be a little gentler on the water”, said Thomas Pesquet. “Then what can happen is that things move a bit.” “We already have a little seasickness when we get back on land, so when we get back to sea it may be even worse, but we’ll see.”, he added. After its vertiginous descent, the Dragon capsule will be recovered from one of the possible arrival points, off Florida, by a SpaceX boat.