Four astronauts returned to Earth on Saturday after hustling to the International Space Station five months ago to relieve the stuck test pilots of Boeing’s Starliner.
Their SpaceX capsule parachuted into the Pacific off the Southern California coast a day after departing the orbiting lab.
Splashing down were NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov. They launched in March as replacements for the two NASA astronauts assigned to Starliner’s botched demo.
Starliner malfunctions kept Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams at the space station for more than nine months instead of a week. NASA ordered Boeing’s new crew capsule to return empty and switched the pair to SpaceX. They left soon after McClain and her crew arrived to take their places. Wilmore has since retired from NASA.
Before leaving the space station on Friday, McClain made note of “some tumultuous times on Earth” with people struggling.
“We want this mission, our mission, to be a reminder of what people can do when we work together, when we explore together,” she said.
In this image provided by NASA, SpaceX capsule carrying four astronauts, parachutes into the Pacific Ocean off the Southern California coast on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2025. (Keegan Barber/NASA via AP)
via Associated Press
LIVE: After nearly five months on the @Space_Station, our Crew-10 space travelers are returning to Earth!
Crew-10 will be our first Commercial Crew mission to splash down off the California coast. Splashdown is targeted for 11:33am ET (1533 UTC). https://t.co/rLlnqasErx
— NASA (@NASA) August 9, 2025
McClain looked forward to “doing nothing for a couple of days” once back home in Houston. High on her crewmates’ wish list: hot showers and juicy burgers.
It was SpaceX’s third Pacific splashdown with people on board, but the first for a NASA crew in 50 years. Elon Musk’s company switched capsule returns from Florida to California’s coast earlier this year to reduce the risk of debris falling on populated areas. Back-to-back private crews were the first to experience Pacific homecomings.
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