After undocking from the International Space Station at 11:20 a.m. EDT (1520 GMT), SpaceX Crew-7 and its four members were seen departing live on NASA Television. According to NASA’s broadcast, the undocking happened above Hawaii.
“Enjoy the last few hours in orbit, and soft landings.” Exiting NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara said to the leaving crew, “Can’t wait to see you guys in a couple of weeks,”
The multinational crew comprises astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli from NASA, astronaut Andreas Mogensen from the European Space Agency (ESA), Satoshi Furukawa from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov from Roscosmos. If they splash down tomorrow (March 12) on schedule, their mission will last 199 days.
During a training session at SpaceX’s California headquarters, four astronauts wearing black and white spacesuits pose.
According to NASA, Crew-7 should land off the coast of Florida no earlier than Tuesday, March 12, at 5:35 a.m. EDT (09:35 GMT), assuming the return to Earth goes according to plan. However, the choice of splashdown site will determine that. The current time slot for coverage is 4:30 a.m. EDT (0830 GMT).
On August 26, Crew-7, traveling aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Endurance, lifted out for a six-month stay on the orbiting complex. They conducted hundreds of experiments, loaded and unloaded many supply cargo ships, and accommodated the Axiom Space Ax-3 private crew during their brief, roughly two-week stay at the International Space Station.
On November 1, 2023, Moghbeli and her NASA astronaut colleague O’Hara—who had landed on the ISS independently on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft—participated in the fourth-ever all-woman spacewalk. Among other things, they changed an electronics box that was broken.
After a leak at the Russian portion of the ISS in October, another spacewalk with less urgent work scheduled was first rescheduled and then cancelled. It would have featured Moghbeli and Mogensen, doing his first-ever spacewalk.
Mogensen wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, from the International Space Station on October 11, 2023, not long after the postponement was first revealed. “NASA will need more time to assess the readiness of the EVA,” he said. “I fully support the safety-first approach we always take when it comes to space, even if it means waiting a bit longer to go on our spacewalk.”
