Image: The SpaceX Crew-4 astronauts are seated inside the Dragon Freedom crew ship before their launch atop the Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The commercial crew quartet (from left) are Mission Specialist Jessica watkins, Pilot Robert Hines, Commander Kjell Lindgren, and Mission Specialist Samantha Cristorforetti. Credits: SpaceX.
NASA will provide live coverage of the upcoming return activities for the agency’s SpaceX Crew-4 mission to the International Space Station.
NASA and SpaceX are targeting 5:41 p.m. EDT Thursday, Oct. 13, for the splashdown and conclusion of the Crew-4 flight, wrapping up a nearly six-month science mission for NASA astronauts Bob Hines, Kjell Lindgren, and Jessica Watkins, as well as ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. Their SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to undock from the space station at 7:05 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 12, to begin the journey home.
Weather remains a watch item as teams track the progress of a cold front forecast to pass over the splashdown areas off the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of Florida. Mission teams will continue to monitor splashdown and recovery conditions with another weather review at six hours prior to undocking. Additional undocking opportunities also are available Thursday, Oct. 13.
The Crew-4 farewell remarks, change of command, hatch closing, undocking, and splashdown coverage will air live on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. NASA also will host an audio only post-splashdown news teleconference. Follow all live events at: https://www.nasa.gov/live
On Wednesday, Oct. 12, the Crew-4 astronauts will share farewell remarks, and station Commander Samantha Cristoforetti will hand over command of the station to Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev. The Dragon spacecraft, named Freedom by the crew, will autonomously undock, depart the space station, and splash down Thursday, Oct. 13, at one of seven targeted landing zones in the Atlantic Ocean or Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida. Freedom also will return important and time-sensitive research to Earth.
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4 return coverage is as follows (all times Eastern):
Wednesday, Oct. 12
10:05 a.m. – Crew-4 farewell remarks and change of command ceremony aboard the space station.
5 p.m. – Hatch closure coverage begins for 5:20 p.m. hatch closing
6:45 p.m. – Undocking coverage begins for 7:05 p.m. undocking with a Thursday splashdown
Thursday, Oct. 13
5:41 p.m. – Splashdown off the coast of Florida
7 p.m. – Return to Earth media teleconference call from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston with:
- Steve Stich, manager, Commercial Crew Program, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida
- Joel Montalbano, manger, International Space Station, NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston
- SpaceX Representative
