PREVIEW

NASA's Crew-7 and their SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule splashed down off the Pensacola, Florida in the early hours of Tuesday morning (12March2024).
Travelling at a speed of 17,500 mph in orbit, the capsule plunged through the atmosphere, gradually slowing down before making a gentle splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico under a canopy of parachutes. This marked the conclusion of a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
The Crew-7 team comprised mission commander and NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, the European Space Agency's Andreas Mogensen, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Satoshi Furukawa, and Russian cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov. Notably, it was the maiden space voyage for Moghbeli and Borisov, while Furukawa and Mogensen completed their second spaceflights.
During their time on the ISS, the crew conducted over 200 experiments as part of their science and research mission. Of particular value was one milestone experiment involving the study of blood samples, allowing researchers to monitor the impact of spaceflight on immune function during the mission—an advancement as previously, this could only be studied before and after a mission.
The Crew-7 members have now been relieved by the Crew-8 mission, which launched on a SpaceX rocket to the ISS last week. The Crew-8 team is set to spend the next six months aboard the orbital outpost. This rotation is part of NASA's Commercial Crew program, where commercial companies are contracted to transport people to and from the space station since the retirement of the shuttle fleet in 2011.
Looking ahead, the next NASA mission to the ISS is scheduled to be the inaugural human flight of Boeing's long-delayed Starliner capsule. It is slated for May.