NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov touched down at 1:33am AEST on Saturday. SpaceX recovery teams swiftly retrieved the Dragon spacecraft and crew, who will now travel to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to reunite with their families.
“Splashdown! Crew-10 is back on Earth from the International Space Station, marking the completion of another successful flight,” NASA acting Administrator Sean Duffy said. “Our crew missions are the building blocks for long-duration human exploration, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. NASA is setting a bold vision for a thriving space industry supporting private space stations in low Earth orbit, as well as humans exploring the Moon and Mars.”
Crew-10 launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A in Florida at 10:03am AEDT on 15 March, docking with the ISS’s Harmony module just over a day later. The crew undocked on 9 August to begin their journey home.
Over nearly six months in orbit, the crew travelled more than 62 million kilometres and circled the planet 2,368 times. It was the first spaceflight for Ayers and Peskov, while McClain and Onishi each completed their second. McClain has now spent 352 days in space across her career and Onishi, 263 days.
The astronauts conducted hundreds of hours of scientific research and technology demonstrations, ranging from plant and microalgae growth experiments to studying the effects of space radiation on plant DNA, and investigating how microgravity alters human eye structure and cell behaviour. The work supports preparations for future human missions to the moon and Mars.
On 1 May, McClain and Ayers also ventured outside the station for a spacewalk, relocating a communications antenna and beginning the installation of a mounting bracket for a new roll-out solar array. It was McClain’s third spacewalk and Ayers’ first.
Crew-10’s departure made way for Crew-11, which docked at the ISS on 2 August to begin its own long-duration science mission.
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, run in partnership with private US companies such as SpaceX, provides regular astronaut transport to and from the ISS. The program maximises the station’s use for research and technology development, while laying the groundwork for exploration beyond low-Earth orbit.