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Four space station fliers return to Earth with spectacular pre-dawn descent
Closing out a six-month stay at the International Space Station, a three-man, one-woman crew plunged back to Earth early Tuesday, streaking across the heartland of America like a blazing meteor as their Crew Dragon capsule descended to a Gulf of Mexico splashdown.
Suspended beneath four huge parachutes, the Crew Dragon “Endurance” settled to a gentle walking pace touchdown south of Pensacola, Florida, at 5:47 a.m. EDT, closing out a 199-day mission spanning 3,184 orbits and 84.4 million miles.
NASA / SpaceX
SpaceX crews were stationed nearby to haul the capsule and its crew — commander Jasmin Moghbeli, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, Japanese flier Satoshi Furukawa and cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov — aboard a waiting recovery ship.
The 18-and-a-half-hour trip home began Monday when Moghbeli and her Crew 7 colleagues undocked from the International Space Station.
Flying 260 miles above the Indian Ocean, the crew monitored an automated 13.5-minute thruster firing starting at 4:56 a.m. EDT, slowing the spacecraft by about 212 mph and dropping the far side of its orbit deep into the atmosphere as required for a descent to the Gulf of Mexico.
Re-entering the discernible atmosphere, the Crew Dragon followed a northwest-to-southeast trajectory across the United States, rapidly slowing in a fireball of super-heated air.
NASA said viewers along a path stretching from Nebraska to central Kansas, northeast Oklahoma, central Arkansas and Mississippi would have a chance to see the returning spacecraft between 5:35 and 5:40 a.m., weather permitting.
After crossing the panhandle of Florida, now flying at just a few hundred miles per hour, small drogue parachutes inflated to stabilize the spacecraft followed by the four main chutes. The Crew Dragon then descended to a gentle splashdown in calm winds and mild seas.
With the crew re-adjusting to gravity after six months in weightlessness, SpaceX engineers and NASA flight surgeons were standing by to help carry Moghbeli, Mogensen, Furukawa and Borisov out of the capsule and onto stretchers before rolling them inside for initial medical checks.
NASA/SpaceX
As with all Crew Dragon returns, the crew was expected to be flown to shore by helicopter, boarding a waiting NASA aircraft for a flight back to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Left behind aboard the space station were their replacements, Crew 8 commander Matthew Dominick, co-pilot Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps and cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin along with Soyuz crewmates Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara.
Launched last September aboard the Soyuz MS-24/70S ferry ship, Kononenko and Chub are midway through a yearlong mission while O’Hara is wrapping up a more typical six-month tour of duty.
On March 21, the Soyuz MS-25/71S spacecraft will be delivered to the space station by cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, Belarus guest cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson. Novitskiy, Vasilevskaya and O’Hara will return to Earth April 2 using the same Soyuz that carried Kononenko, Chub and O’Hara to the station last year.
Kononenko, Chub and Dyson will use the Soyuz delivered by Novitskiy for their trip home in September.
During a change-of-command ceremony Sunday, Mogensen, the outgoing commander of Expedition 70, turned the station over to Kononenko, who now holds the record for most cumulative time spent in space over his four missions. As of Tuesday, his cumulative time in space stood at 916 days.
NASA/SpaceX
During a change-of-command ceremony Sunday, Mogensen, the outgoing commander of Expedition 70, turned the station over to Kononenko, who now holds the record for most cumulative time spent in space over his four missions. As of Tuesday, his cumulative time in space stood at 916 days.
“On my first mission in 2015, I had the pleasure of flying with Gennady Padalka, who at that time set the (multi-flight endurance) record for 878 days in space,” Mogensen said during the ceremony.
“You’ve now surpassed that,” he said to Kononenko, “and you are well on your way to reaching 1,000 days in space, which is an incredible achievement. There is no one more experienced than you when it comes to the International Space Station. So I’ll be leaving it in probably the best hands possible.”
Kononenko will reach the 1,000-day mark on June 4. By the time he returns to Earth, he’ll have spent more than three years in space.
NEW YORK — Former New York Gov. David Paterson and his stepson were attacked in New York City on Friday night, authorities said.
The incident occurred just before 9 p.m. on Second Avenue near East 96th Street on the Upper East Side, according to the New York City Police Department.
Police said officers were sent to the scene after an assault was reported. When officers arrived, police say they found a 20-year-old man suffering from facial injuries and a 70-year-old man who had head pain. Both victims were taken to a local hospital in stable condition.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the former governor said the two were attacked while “taking a walk around the block near their home by some individuals that had a previous interaction with his stepson.”
The spokesperson said that they were injured “but were able to fight off their attackers.”
Both were taken to Cornell Hospital “as a precaution,” he added.
Police said no arrests have been made and the investigation is ongoing.
The 70-year-old Paterson, a Democrat, served as governor from 2008 to 2010, stepping into the post after the resignation of Eliot Spitzer following his prostitution scandal. He made history at the time as the state’s first-ever Black and legally blind governor.
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A 17-year-old boy was critically injured and a person is in custody after a gunman opened fire on a SEPTA bus in North Philadelphia Friday evening, police said.
At around 6:15 p.m., Philadelphia police were notified about a shooting on a SEPTA bus traveling on Allegheny Avenue near 3rd and 4th streets in North Philadelphia, Inspector D F Pace told CBS News Philadelphia.
There were an estimated 30 people on the bus at the time of the shooting, Pace said, but only the 17-year-old boy was believed to have been shot. Investigators said they believe it was a targeted attack on the teenager and that he was shot in the back of the bus at close range.
According to Pace, the SEPTA bus driver alerted a control center about the shooting, which then relayed the message to Philadelphia police, who responded to the scene shortly.
Officers arrived at the scene and found at least one spent shell casing and blood on the bus, but no shooting victim, Pace said. Investigators later discovered the 17-year-old had been taken to Temple University Hospital where he is said to be in critical condition, according to police.
CBS Philadelphia
Through their preliminary investigation, police learned those involved in the SEPTA shooting may have fled in a silver-colored Kia.
Authorities then found a car matching the description of the Kia speeding in the area and a pursuit began, Pace said. Police got help from a PPD helicopter as they followed the Kia, which ended up crashing at 5th and Greenwood streets in East Mount Airy. Pace said the Kia crashed into a parked car.
The driver of the crashed car ran away but police were still able to take them into custody, Pace said.
Investigators believe there was a second person involved in the shooting who ran from the car before it crashed. Police said they believe this person escaped near Allegheny Avenue and 4th Street, leaving a coat behind.
According to Pace, police also found a gun and a group of spent shell casings believed to be involved in the shooting in the same area.
“It’s very possible that there may have been a shooting inside the bus and also shots fired from outside of the bus toward the bus,” Pace said, “We’re still trying to piece all that together at this time.”
This is an active investigation and police are reviewing surveillance footage from the SEPTA bus.