The Fram2 mission, SpaceX’s latest private spaceflight, concluded after a historic splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near Oceanside, California. This marked the first time a SpaceX crewed mission returned to Earth via the West Coast, as all previous missions had landed off Florida’s coast.

This mission also achieved another historic milestone: it was the first human spaceflight to circle the planet via a polar orbit.

The Fram2 mission had circled the Earth for four days in a north-south orbit. The journey was the first time people have been able to look down directly at the North and South Poles from orbit.

SpaceX moved its operations to the Pacific to eliminate the problem of Dragon debris falling in random parts of Earth. The Pacific is the biggest pool of water on the planet, and the weather along the West Coast of the United States tends to be pretty nice, too, which provides more days favorable for the return of astronauts.