KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. – After spending more than two weeks in space, the crew of the Axiom Mission 3 now gets an extra weekend in Space and is expected to splashdown off the coast of Florida next week instead.
The crew was originally scheduled to come home Saturday, but SpaceX announced that the crew of four would spend additional days in space due to poor weather conditions expected this weekend in the recovery zone off Florida.
SOUTH FLORIDA UNDER THREAT OF SEVERE STORMS, ISOLATED TORNADOES SUNDAY
Once cleared to return to Earth, the Dragon spacecraft will undock from the International Space Station and parachute through Earth’s atmosphere.
Walter Villadei of Italy, Michael López-Alegría of Spain, Alper Gezeravcı of Turkey, and Marcus Wandt of Sweden made up the all-European crew that blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center on Jan. 18.
FIRST ALL-EUROPEAN PRIVATE ASTRONAUT MISSION LAUNCHES ON SPACEX DRAGON FROM FLORIDA
While aboard the International Space Station, the crew conducted more than 30 experiments on biomedical research, sleep, bone health, space weather and even how to cook pasta in space.
The Dragon spacecraft will remain attached to the ISS until ground crews can determine that winds and seas have subsided enough in the splashdown zone.
According to NASA, wind speeds cannot be greater than 15 feet per second, and lightning must be at least 10 miles away from the protected boundary.
“Ax-3 is the third of several proposed Axiom Space human spaceflight missions, and a critical step along the journey toward Axiom Station, the world’s first commercial space station,” the Houston-based company said.
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The Ax-3 mission is the third all-private crewed mission to the ISS, with previous missions taking place in 2022 and 2023.
A SpaceX mission to send three NASA astronauts and one cosmonaut to the space station is set to lift off from Florida’s Space Coast in late February.
The next Axiom mission, Ax-4, isn’t slated to launch until October, at the earliest.