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After about six months in the SpaceL’crew from Crew-4including the Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforettireturned to the Land landing off the coast of Florida. The return went as planned despite some previous postponements due to unsuitable weather conditions for ditching in the previous days. Thus ends the second mission, called Minerva (after the one started in November 2014 and ended in June 2015, called Futura).

The mission included several experiments as well as a popular part on social networks (such as TikTok or Twitter) showing to the youngest and not only some curiosities of life in Space in addition to the beauty of the view from low Earth orbit. He is not excluded, but not even confirmed, that the next mission he will participate in Samantha Cristoforetti it could be in lunar orbit, perhaps with the Artemis IV mission (expected no earlier than 2025) which will be used to build the Lunar Gateway. Now the astronaut will undergo the examinations and rehabilitation planned for astronauts after long periods in space.

cristoforetti crew-4

The return of Samantha Cristoforetti from the mission on the ISS

The return ofCrew-4 crew it started with theundocking of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Freedom capsule from International Space Station around 18:05 yesterday (Italian time) with a delay of 30 minutes due to the verification of correct alignment. Together with the Italian astronaut were present the astronauts of NASA Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines And Jessica Watkins. On 11 October, before departure, there was the ceremony for the passage of the position of commander between Samantha Cristoforetti (who received it on September 28) and cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev.

crew-4 cristoforetti

Shortly after 22:00, the final ignition of the engines for the return maneuver took place with a duration of about 17 minutes (while shortly before the trunk, the posterior area that disintegrates upon re-entry, even if the fragments sometimes reach the ground). Around 10:45 pm there was the black-out of communications due to the plasma enveloping the Crew Dragon spacecraft entering the densest layers of the atmosphere.

cristoforetti

The WB-57 reconnaissance plane spotted the capsule during its reentry shortly before the parachute opened. Radio contact with was resumed at 22:50 Crew Dragon while two minutes later the extractors opened and about a minute later it was the turn of the principals. The ditching of the capsule took place at 10:55 pm yesterday off the coast of Jacksonville.

cristoforetti

Shortly after 11.40pm the first to come out was Bob Hines, followed by Kjell Lindgren and Jessica Watkins. The last to be extracted was precisely Samantha Cristoforetti around 11:48 pm. In total theItalian astronaut she spent 369 days in space (between the two missions) becoming the second woman with the most overall stay after Peggy Whitson. The next appointment will be on October 18 from 10:45 at 11:15 for the press conference to be held at the ESA astronaut center in Cologne.


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