SpaceX Crew-12 leaves the space station; Dragon targets Thursday splashdown off California

Crew-12 at a glance

Crew

Jessica Meir (NASA, commander); Jack Hathaway (NASA, pilot); Sophie Adenot (ESA, mission specialist); Andrey Fedyaev (Roscosmos, mission specialist)

Spacecraft

SpaceX Dragon (NASA has not used a separate spacecraft name in its return posts)

Hatch closed

5:05 a.m. CT / 6:05 a.m. ET, Wed., Oct. 7

Undocked

Wed. morning, Oct. 7, per NASA (scheduled about 7:05 a.m. CT / 8:05 a.m. ET)

Targeted splashdown

about 10:34 a.m. CT / 11:34 a.m. ET, Thu., Oct. 8, Pacific Ocean off the California coast

Mission length

237 days in space, per NASA

The latest

The four Crew-12 members closed the hatch between their SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and the International Space Station at 5:05 a.m. CT (6:05 a.m. ET) Wednesday, NASA said, marking the start of return operations. NASA had planned the hatch closing for about 5:20 a.m. CT (6:20 a.m. ET).

Dragon then undocked from the space-facing port of the station’s Harmony module, NASA confirmed Wednesday morning. Undocking had been scheduled for about 7:05 a.m. CT (8:05 a.m. ET); NASA’s summary timeline listed the undock at 7 a.m. CT (8 a.m. ET) followed by the first departure burn at 7:05 a.m. CT (8:05 a.m. ET).

Before leaving, Meir handed command of the station to Roscosmos cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov in a change-of-command ceremony on Sunday, Oct. 4, NASA said. The crew spent recent weeks packing Dragon with personal items, cargo and scientific samples.

Meet the crew

Jessica Meir of NASA commands Dragon and Jack Hathaway of NASA is the pilot. Sophie Adenot of ESA and Andrey Fedyaev of Roscosmos fly as mission specialists. NASA said this was the second spaceflight for Meir and Fedyaev and the first for Hathaway and Adenot. ESA calls Adenot’s mission εpsilon.

The mission

Crew-12 launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 at 4:15 a.m. CT (5:15 a.m. ET) on Feb. 13 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and Dragon docked to the station at 2:15 p.m. CT (3:15 p.m. ET) the following day, Feb. 14, NASA said. NASA describes it as the 12th crew rotation mission of SpaceX’s human space transportation system for the agency’s Commercial Crew Program.

At launch, NASA said the crew’s research would include studying pneumonia-causing bacteria to improve cardiovascular treatments, generating intravenous fluid on demand for future missions, and examining how physical characteristics may affect blood flow in spaceflight, along with automated plant-health monitoring and studies of plants and nitrogen-fixing microbes to improve food production in space.

Their replacements, NASA’s SpaceX Crew-13 (NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, CSA astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov), arrived Oct. 1. Crew-12’s departure leaves seven people aboard the station, NASA said.

The trip home

NASA said the crew faces a roughly 27-hour journey home. According to NASA’s summary timeline, the deorbit burn is planned for 9:46 a.m. CT (10:46 a.m. ET) Thursday, drogue parachutes at 10:30 a.m. CT (11:30 a.m. ET), main parachutes at 10:31 a.m. CT (11:31 a.m. ET) and splashdown at 10:34 a.m. CT (11:34 a.m. ET).

Dragon is targeting a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, where NASA and SpaceX recovery personnel will retrieve the spacecraft and greet the crew, NASA said. NASA has not published a more precise splashdown point. NASA said departure depends on spacecraft and recovery-team readiness and weather in the Pacific off California, and all times are subject to change.

What you’re seeing

On the SpaceX livestream, Dragon’s three touchscreens appear to be its main displays. The flight is automated; the suited crew monitor it, with tablets that appear to serve as backup reference.

The side screens appear to show Dragon’s position and path relative to the station and Earth. The center screen appears to show the step-by-step checklist, for example “Depart 1 Burn Prep,” which readies a small thruster firing to move farther away.

The bottom readouts show range, Dragon’s distance from the station (about 82 meters, then about 138 meters, longer than a football field), and rate, its speed away from the station (about 0.3 meters per second, slower than a walking pace, on purpose). Altitude read about 428 km (266 miles).

A row of physical buttons below the screens appears to be a backup for critical commands.

Readings are approximate, taken from the livestream.

How to watch

SpaceX is livestreaming the return at https://www.spacex.com/launches/crew12. NASA is streaming undocking coverage on NASA+ and will resume live return coverage at 9:20 a.m. CT (10:20 a.m. ET) Thursday, continuing through splashdown. Between those windows, NASA plans to distribute audio-only communications between the crew, the station and flight controllers.