1st Pacific Splashdown in 30 Years and 3d for SpaceX With Souls Onboard

Four crew members who flew to the International Space Station (ISS) earlier this year to relieve two astronauts who were left stranded by a beleaguered space capsule returned to Earth on Saturday. 

NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, along with Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov, splashed down in the Pacific off the coast of Southern California on Saturday morning at 11:33 a.m. ET in a SpaceX capsule. 

It was the first Pacific splashdown for NASA in 50 years, and the third for SpaceX with people on board. 

NASA astronauts last splashed down in the Pacific in 1975, during the Apollo-Soyuz mission, the first crewed international space mission that involved Americans and Soviets.