Stranded Astronauts Return to Earth

MUSIC (00:04):

(music)

Kate Tice (00:21):

Good afternoon and welcome to our live coverage of the NASA SpaceX Crew Nine Mission as it returns to Earth. Dragon Freedom departed the International Space Station at 1:05 AM Eastern. That was 10:05 PM Pacific Time on March 17th for those of us here in California. Onboard Crew Nine are NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos Cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, and they are now on their way to the targeted Splashdown site off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida. My name is Kate Tice, Senior Quality Systems Engineering Manager here at SpaceX. And joining me today from NASA Communications is Sandra Jones.

Sandra Jones (01:05):

Thanks, Kate. It's always such a pleasure to be here. Upon departing the International Space Station, Dragon underwent a sequence of departure burns. The crew then had a rest period and has since kicked off preparations for reentry, including getting into their spacesuits and successfully performing a leak check. The next phase of the mission is when things will really start to amp up. Dragon has a series of steps to complete before returning Crew Nine home.

Kate Tice (01:31):

That's right. First, Dragon will maneuver to the correct attitude and jettison its trunk, which is the cylindrical unpressurized lower part of the spacecraft. The trunk is currently connected to the aft or bottom section of Dragon where the heat shield is exposed or is located. But in order to expose that heat shield and get the vehicle ready for atmospheric reentry, we're going to jettison that trunk.

Sandra Jones (01:55):

From there, the spacecraft will use its forward thrusters to perform a de-orbit burn, which will put Dragon on a trajectory to return to Earth. This burn will last about seven and a half minutes once it starts. The de-orbit Burn uses Draco thrusters on Dragon, primarily the four located on the forward bulkhead, and is executed at the apogee or the highest point of Earth's current orbit around the earth. This de-orbit burn will alter Dragon's path to ultimately line it up to reenter Earth's atmosphere and splash down off the coast of Florida. Splashdown today is planned for 2:57 PM Pacific or 5:57 PM Eastern.

Kate Tice (02:36):

The Crew Nine mission began a little differently than usual, since Butch Wilmore and Sunny Williams were already aboard the Space Station when Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov arrived in the Crew Nine spacecraft in September. Having arrived as the crew flight test crew for Starliner, Wilmore and Williams were fully incorporated into the Space Station's Expedition 72 team and began research and other work aboard the station along with the other crew members. Additionally, Williams commanded the orbiting laboratory for much of the expedition.

Sandra Jones (03:11):

And after a successful liftoff and separation from Falcon Nine, Nick and Aleksandr made a short flight onboard Dragon to the International Space Station in September. Both veterans of long duration station missions, both Williams and Wilmore conducted spacewalks during their nine months in space. Having had the capacity to leave the station at any point had there been some type of emergency, the crew members began packing for their voyage home about a week ago and worked through tasks and shared lessons learned with the newly arrived Crew 10 team who arrived just a few days ago.

Kate Tice (03:44):

For return operations such as this, NASA and SpaceX closely coordinate with the United States Coast Guard to establish a safety zone to ensure public safety and for the safety of those involved in the recovery operations as well as the crew onboard the returning spacecraft. Multiple notices are issued to Mariners in advance of and during recovery operations and Coast Guard patrol boats are deployed to discourage boaters from entering the splashdown zones.

Sandra Jones (04:12):

Now, we do want to stress to the public the need to respect this safety zone. Recovering a spacecraft from the water is a hazardous task and any other boats interfering increases risk to the astronauts and Dragon, the teams working to recover them from the water, and the safety of those that come too close. So for the safety of the crew and your safety, we recommend you sit back and watch as we'll be bringing you the best possible views of our astronaut's homecoming.

Kate Tice (04:38):

And they will be the best views that you can get, so let's take a minute to meet our returning crew, US Space Force Colonel Nick Hague is your Crew Nine commander. He was selected by NASA as an astronaut in 2013. This was his second space flight to the International Space Station and third launch overall. He spent 171 days in space with Crew Nine and has a career total of 374 days in space. During his mission, he completed a spacewalk with astronaut Suni Williams. That was his fourth spacewalk, earning him a career total of 25 hours, 56 minutes of spacewalking time. Before Crew Nine, Hague previously served as a crew member of Expedition 59 and 60 back in 2019. He flew with Aleksey Ovchinin and NASA's Christina Koch.

(05:33)
So this is his second time sharing the Space Station with Ovchinin. The Kansas native is a test pilot and a distinguished graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. Nick spent five months in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He voluntarily transferred from the United States Air Force to US Space Force in 2021 and is an active colonel. His wife Katie is a retired US Air Force Colonel and they have two sons.

Sandra Jones (06:02):

NASA astronaut Suni Williams is a mission specialist for Crew Nine. This was her third visit to the Space Station. She originally launched aboard Boeing Starliner spacecraft and arrived at the Space Station on June 6th, and it looks like we are beginning to get some views inside the spacecraft overlooking the shoulders of the crew onboard Dragon. We'll continue to bring you those views throughout the day and views throughout splashdown this morning or this afternoon rather. But to jump back into a little bit more about Suni, she became an Expedition 71, 72 crew member, and she logged 286 days in space on this mission, but she actually has a total of 608 days in space, the second most time in space by a US astronaut.

(06:49)
Former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson ranks first for the US with 675 days in space. She conducted two spacewalks and has completed nine over the course of her career for a total of 62 hours and six minutes of spacewalking time. She ranks fourth on the list of cumulative time spacewalking by a female astronaut, and she has flown on four different spacecraft types, including the space shuttle, Soyuz, Starliner, and now Dragon. Previously she served on Expedition 14 and 15 in 2006 and 2007, and again with Expedition 32 and 33 in 2012. She's a retired US Navy captain and is a proud graduate of the US Naval Academy.

Kate Tice (07:33):

NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore is also serving as a mission specialist today. This is his third spaceflight and just like Suni logged 286 days in space. He conducted one spacewalk and completed five over the course of his career, earning him a total spacewalking time of 21 hours, two minutes. He's flown on four different spacecraft types throughout his career. The Space Shuttle, Soyuz, Starliner, and now Dragon. Previously, the Mount Juliet, Tennessee native served on STS-129 in 2009 and Expedition 41 and 42 from 2014 to 2015. Wilmore is also retired, a retired captain in the US Navy.

Sandra Jones (08:17):

And Aleksandr Gorbunov is a third mission specialist serving on today's mission. Crew Nine was his very first spaceflight to the Space station, earning him a total of 171 days in space over the course of his career. Gorbunov along with Nick Hague saw the arrival of four visiting vehicles and saw the departure of four as well. The duo orbited the earth more than 2,700 times during their mission. Before his cosmonaut selection in 2018, Gorbunov worked as an engineer for a Rocket space corporation and helped support cargo spacecraft launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Kate Tice (08:58):

To prepare for upcoming events, Dragon is currently doing a couple of things autonomously. First, it's isolating the thermal control system fluid loops from the radiator. This system is what will help keep the internal temperature of Dragon very comfortable for Nick, Suni, Butch and Aleksandr during the reentry phase. Dragon is also initiating separation of the claw mechanism, which will terminate data, power and fluid connections between the spacecraft and the trunk in preparation for that trunk separation that I mentioned earlier. Now, as we saw before, we are hoping to get more views inside of the Dragon capsule. We will bring those. Of course, we want to see more of our four crew members, but now a bit more of the Dragon Freedom capsule.

(09:46)
It has flown on several missions for NASA. It first launched April 27th, 2022 to the International Space Station on NASA's SpaceX Crew Four Mission. It was subsequently used for two private spaceflight missions to the Space Station for Axiom Space. Axiom mission two in May 2023, and Axiom mission three in January of 2024. And of course, Crew Nine launched last year, September 28th. So yeah, a little bit about the Dragon Freedom capsule here, a view that we have once again between the shoulders of Commander Nick Hague, who is on the left-hand side of your screen there, and mission specialist Aleksandr Gorbunov there on the right.

Sandra Jones (10:35):

That's right, Kate. And the next major milestone that we're looking ahead towards this afternoon is claw separation. We're targeting that claw separation at 2:05 PM Pacific Time this afternoon. So less than 10 minutes from now. Continuing to get some views inside Dragon Freedom. To the far left there is NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore, and as you can see, the crew is suited up in their spacesuits. They are suited up in what we call dynamic phases of flight. So when they launch, when they dock, when they un-dock, when they return back for splashdown, we might hear some call-outs on the loops about putting their visors down. That will happen just prior to de-orbit burn, and you'll hear us pause when some of those communications happen. That's because we want to make sure that we are relaying the best information to you all and so that you hear it as well. So if you do hear us pause, that is what we're doing. You also see they have their- [inaudible 00:11:26] on there and I know the gloves are pretty unique on the Dragon spacesuits, right? They're custom-created.

Kate Tice (11:31):

Yes. The spacesuit overall is custom fit for each astronaut. These gloves enable usage of the touch screen panels that they have in front of them. We can't see it from this view, but that view we saw earlier between Aleksandr Gorbunov and Nick Hague, that is a touchscreen. It allows the crew to monitor everything that Dragon is doing along with those tablets that they have there on their legs. So yeah, the spacesuit itself is intended to act as a mini spaceship, if you will, as once the visors are closed, it is able to maintain a pressure in the unlikely event of a depressurization event for Dragon.

(12:16)
So there we can see those screens I was talking about. So there in the center we've got the location tracker as well as on the left-hand side. It's mapping out the operations that Dragon is executing. The crew has to remain well-informed of all these things that Dragon is doing autonomously. That basically means that Dragon is flying itself. The crew has the ability to gain control of the capsule if necessary, but the capsule is essentially going to bring itself home. But of course, in order to be familiar with…

Speaker 1 (12:50):

Freedom SpaceX, de-orbit sequence start in five minutes.

Speaker 2 (13:06):

Freedom copies.

Sandra Jones (13:06):

And so we did hear that call out for the de-orbit sequence start to begin here in five minutes. That call from the ground came from the core or crew operations resource engineer here in Hawthorne, mission control just behind us. And that went up to Commander Nick Hague. He's going to be doing the majority of the communications during the flight downhill today through splashdown, and they'll be communicating with the core all along the way. Now, we did mention that they're flying on Crew Dragon Freedom. The naming of spacecraft has gone all the way back to the very beginning of this human spaceflight program. This is a nod to Alan Shepard naming his spacecraft Freedom Seven during the Mercury program. And so the crew that first flew up on Freedom a few years ago had the opportunity to name this dragon and they named it Freedom. That was Crew Four that was the first flyers on this spacecraft. It's also flown for Axiom Mission two and three, and then of course today for Crew Nine as well.

Kate Tice (14:00):

Yeah, actually fun fact about this particular capsule. Of those four missions that Sandra just mentioned, we have seen daytime splashdowns for two of those. Today will mark the third daytime splashdown. So there's something lucky about this particular capsule that gets daytime splashdowns. Nighttime is great because we can see even more clearly the capsule streaking through, but I personally love the daylight views because we really get even better views of the recovery team operations during that phase of the mission.

Sandra Jones (14:34):

Yes, absolutely. And if you follow along with our missions, you'll know that sometimes weather is a watch item when it comes to un-docking and Splashdown. We do splash down in the water, so we want to ensure that parameters like wave heights and wind speeds and precipitation, lightning, all of that is looking good for the crew and the safety of those recovery personnel. And today, the weather is just pristine. We got off of Space Station on the very first attempt, so I'm joking around and saying that it was because it was St. Patrick's Day and we got really lucky with the weather.

Kate Tice (15:03):

I wouldn't disagree with that. Speaking of weather, we will be hearing from core probably around 2:20-ish. Typically before we enter the period of loss of signal or LOS, we will hear an entry briefing from the core, the crew operations resource engineer, and they will deliver important information like updated anticipated splashdown and loss of signal times to the crew as well as the wave height and wind speed. So we'll be standing by to listen in on those. Like I said, that will happen shortly after, typically after trunk separation. I can't quite remember if it's before or after de-orbit burn. It must be before. But in any case, we'll be hearing all of that coming from core. In fact, that individual is seated there in the room on your screen. That is SpaceX Mission Control in Hawthorne, California.

(16:04)
That room is located just over our shoulders, and that is where Dragon operators are standing by on console, monitoring the progress of Dragon as it continues its way home. It's been, at the point of splashdown, it'll be about 17 hours since Dragon un-docked from the International Space Station. The team there in mission control, there are multiple teams in fact, and they cycle through shifts to ensure that everybody gets the required rest and sleep periods just like the astronauts on board. And that crew operations and resource engineer is seated there in the room, and that, like Sandra said, is the primary voice that we'll be hearing communicate from the SpaceX team to the crew on board.

Sandra Jones (16:55):

That's right. And so it looks like we're about three minutes or so from the claw separation portion of today's flight. The claw is a portion on the spacecraft that holds the trunk to Dragon. Following claw separation, we're going to jettison or remove that trunk because it's no longer needed. The trunk has solar arrays on it that provides power to the Dragon spacecraft. But now that we're beginning the reentry process, we need to go ahead and jettison that trunk and able to expose the heat shield, which is really going to do the heavy lifting as Crew Nine re-enters the Earth's atmosphere. They come in at 17,500 miles per hour, so they really need to ensure that that heat shield absorbs that heat and there's…

Speaker 1 (17:36):

De-orbit sequence start.

Sandra Jones (17:50):

And so we did just get communications there that the de-orbit sequence start has begun. So here in just a couple minutes from now, we expect to hear information or a call back about the claw separation having begun. And again, that kicks off that trunk separation portion that I was discussing, to remove that, expose the heat shield, and then eventually we'll have the de-orbit burn. And we'll continue to walk you through all of these milestones as we approach them ahead of our splashdown at 2:57 PM Pacific Time this afternoon off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida.

Kate Tice (18:23):

Yeah, we're very excited to bring the Crew Nine crew home. Sandra, we were talking about the trunk separation. That trunk is on a trajectory that will re-enter in the atmosphere and break up upon that re-entry. The heat shield itself is one of my favorite parts of the Dragon capsule. It is the workhorse of the re-entry phase. It will work to protect the Dragon Capsule and the crew members on board during the re-entry phase as the temperatures outside of the capsule build up to I believe about 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit in excess of. And meanwhile, the interior of Dragon stays a very comfortable temperature. That heat shield does a lot of the work, and we'll see that plasma build up on the exterior of the capsule.

(19:14)
As a result of the plasma that builds up, we will lose communications with the crew. This is known as loss of signal or LOS. This is roughly a 10-minute period on average, even less than I believe today. It is probably about six or seven minutes long. It kind of depends on the mission and it happens for every Dragon capsule that re-enters the atmosphere. Due to that plasma buildup, we're not able to communicate or command the capsule. So we stand by while we wait to regain communication after we pass through that period of loss of signal and get what's known as AOS or acquisition of signal.

Sandra Jones (20:01):

So continuing to stand by for claw separation and then we'll look towards trunk separation. It'll be just about a minute or so after that. That happens pretty rapidly in succession. Some of our milestones will take a little bit longer throughout the day. For example, we will have a de-orbit burn after that that will take about seven and a half minutes and helps get Dragon set up in the right trajectory to splash down in the Gulf off the coast of Florida. So continuing to stand by for claw separation.

Speaker 1 (20:51):

Nominal trunk jettison.

Kate Tice (20:57):

All right, great news there. That trunk has been jettisoned from the Dragon capsule. So the claw was separated. That's the mechanism that connects the telemetry and power between the Dragon capsule and the trunk. In order to expose the heat shield underneath Dragon, we had to jettison that trunk. And so we just got confirmation that that has happened. So that is great news. Basically means that telemetry is looking good and that the nitrox system is primed for cabin and suit cooling. And the heat shield, like I said, is now exposed and ready for atmospheric reentry. The trunk served its purpose by gathering energy from the sun through its solar cells and converting that to battery power.

(21:45)
Since we separated the trunk, we can't generate any more new power, but we really don't need to since we're coming home and Dragon has enough battery power already stored. Now, up next, the final steps that Dragon will perform prior to reentry, the slew or the maneuver to de-orbit burn attitude and then the de-orbit burn itself. This de-orbit burn is the last time that the forward Dracos, which are the four thrusters located on top of the spacecraft under the nose cone, it's the last time that they will ignite. The de-orbit Burn will place Dragon on a precise trajectory to return to the Splashdown zone off the coast of Florida, off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, and that will last about seven and a half minutes once it starts.

Sandra Jones (22:32):

And so de-orbit Burn is targeted for 2:11 PM Central Time. So about two minutes from now. As we mentioned, it's going to last about seven and a half minutes. Again, helping to get Dragon into the precise trajectory to ensure that splashdown occurs in the area that was calculated and where the recovery team is already in place ready to support splashdown operations today. The recovery vessel, Megan, is the ship that is going to be utilized today and we also have what is called fast boats that go out first to check the spacecraft and make sure everything is looking good before the recovery vessel Megan approaches. So that whole recovery process takes about an hour, I would say, from the time the crew splashes down to the time they're on the boat and the crew gets out of the capsule. And we'll continue to bring you live coverage through every step of the way today as Crew Nine returns home.

Kate Tice (23:26):

Indeed. Now let's take a little bit of a closer look at Dragon. One of the great things about being close to the Space Station is that we can use Space Station cameras to look at Dragon, but now that Dragon is on its way home, we don't have those external cameras. So here's an animation of what the capsule looks like. We've got the pressurized section, the capsule on the top, and the trunk or the unpressurized section on the bottom. That's where those solar panels that we manufacture in-house are located, soaking up the energy from the sun and turning it into power for the capsule. At the very top of the capsule is the nose cone. That is where the dracos, the forward dracos are located. That nose cone is currently open, not closed like we saw in that animation. Once we get through the final maneuverings for the reentry phase, we will close the nose cone capsule just before Dragon begins its atmospheric entry to protect that forward hatch. They're located along with those forward dracos. So… Go ahead.

Sandra Jones (24:31):

That's right. I was going to mention that the nose cone does open shortly after launch, and it remains open the entire time that Dragon is docked to the International Space Station. So as an example for this particular spacecraft, Freedom, since September when it docked to the International Space Station, remains open that entire time and here shortly it'll close for the very first time since September.

Kate Tice (24:53):

So quick recap of what Dragon has done in recent history here. We basically began preparations for reentry known as the de-orbit sequence. So Dragon released the trunk, as we said before, we separated the claw. We released the trunk. Next, we'll slew to the de-orbit burn attitude, slew basically meaning maneuver, so it will position itself correctly to execute that de-orbit burn. We want the heat shield side to be facing forward or first if you will. We want that to be the leading edge of the dragon capsule, as that heat shield is meant to basically be an ablative material for the heat that it will incur. Once we complete that de-orbit burn attitude slew, we will initiate the de-orbit burn itself. That will last for several minutes, expecting that to start here any moment now actually. And then it will go until about 2:18 PM Pacific Time or 5:18 PM Eastern Time.

Sandra Jones (26:05):

And I did hear confirmation that that de-orbit burn is underway. As we mentioned, it's about a seven and a half minute burn. So within the last 10 minutes, Dragon has jettisoned its trunk and initiated the de-orbit burn just seconds ago. As mentioned earlier, for those operations, NASA and SpaceX closely coordinate with the United States Coast Guard to establish a safety zone to ensure public safety and for the safety of those involved in the recovery operations, as well as the crew onboard the returning spacecraft. Multiple notices are issued to the Mariners in advance of and during recovery operations, and Coast Guard Patrol boats are deployed to discourage boat from entering the splashdown zones.

(26:49)
So we do want to stress to the public the need to respect this safety zone. Recovering a spacecraft from the water is a hazardous operation and any other boats interfering increases the risk to not only the astronauts in Dragon, but the teams working to recover them from the water and the safety of those that may come too close. So for the safety of the crew, which you see there on your screen, your safety, we recommend you sit back and watch as we'll continue to bring you the best possible views of our astronauts' homecoming.

Kate Tice (27:17):

Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, this de-orbit burn is the last time that we will utilize our four forward Draco thrusters, forward basically meaning at the top of the Dragon capsule. Dragon Freedom has not yet entered the Earth's atmosphere. This de-orbit burn is what will line the vehicle up and put it on its final trajectory to the landing site right off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida. So basically it is the last burn that the Dragon spacecraft executes and is what really locks it in for that precise landing. As you can see on your screen right now, Nick, Suni, Butch and Aleksandr are using their screens to keep tabs on the burn duration, the Draco firings and trajectory details such as entry angle, spacecraft perigee, and how much distance remains until de-orbit burn termination. As I mentioned earlier, Dragon is flying itself, so all the crew has to do is stay strapped into their seats and keep tabs on things. Although I must say, if I had one of those window seats, it would be pretty difficult to restrain myself.

(28:28)
Now with Nick, Suni, Butch and Aleksandr ready to de-orbit and splash down back on Earth, they will be heading to one of eight targeted sites supported by SpaceX and NASA. All of these sites are located off the coast of Florida, either in the Gulf of America or the Atlantic Ocean. Spreading the supported sites across multiple locations helps maximize the return opportunities for this mission and future crews, lowering the chance that we'll have to wave off due to bad weather. For those of you following along, you'll know that today's splashdown marks our final Dragon recovery on the East Coast. After six great years of successful recovery operations off the East Coast, we'll be moving all Dragon recovery operations back to the West Coast.

Sandra Jones (29:17):

And as always, NASA and SpaceX jointly select our splashdown location. And for today, the Prime recovery site is off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida. The selection process works with a lot of different variables, including the space station's, orbital trajectory or path that it follows, what landing sites are available and how favorable weather, how much free flight capability Dragon has for the trip home, and the sleep schedules for the returning crew members as well as of course the big one, the weather.

Kate Tice (29:46):

We'll start with calculating daily return options based off of the Space Station's current orbit and Dragon's capabilities to maneuver and line up for reentry. The time from un-dock to landing at the primary site can vary from less than six hours to more than 39. Getting home the quickest comes with some obvious benefits, but we always have to make sure the crew is properly rested for dynamic operations, preventing us from scheduling 20 plus hour days for them of course. Trajectory and ballistic experts provide the daily opportunities that would line up Dragon with the seven landing zones and split them into what we call ascending and descending opportunities.

Sandra Jones (30:28):

Dragon uses its Draco thrusters after leaving station to execute a series of altitude lowering maneuvers and to line up with the selected primary site. It can also change to different alternative sites while in a free flight if sudden weather moves in that we may need to avoid. As we mentioned, weather is something we're constantly looking at, making the final call to proceed about two and a half hours before the crew un-docks. So for the Crew Nine return, we looked at a number of weather items. Some of the obvious ones are no rain or a chance of lightning in the recovery zone, both for the safety of the crew inside Dragon and the recovery teams in the water.

(31:07)
And we're also looking for wind speeds to be less than 15 feet per second or about 10 miles per hour, and relatively calm seas so that we can safely execute recovery operations, which includes landing a helicopter on the recovery ship to fly. Nick, Suni, Butch, and Aleksandr back to Florida. Once Dragon began flying today, we had a number of additional checkpoints to either proceed towards the primary site, head to the alternate, or select a new zone based on real-time weather data. These checks happened all the way up until we were in the final hours before the de-orbit burn, which has just about a minute or so left in it. And this is the last burn in the trip home that commits Dragon to reentering the Earth's atmosphere.

Kate Tice (31:50):

Now, we are currently waiting to conclude the de-orbit burn. We've got less than a minute until that finishes. We will expect to hear a call-out for nominal burn, which will confirm completion of that de-orbit burn for Dragon Freedom. We can see images there from the touchscreen display panels that the crew utilizes in flight. We can see the visualization of exactly which one of the four forward Draco thrusters are firing. That's why you have kind of a strobe effect there.

Sandra Jones (32:35):

And if you're just joining us, you are looking at live views of the Dragon Freedom. On your left is Commander of Crew Nine, Nick Hague. To his right is Roscosmos Cosmonaut, Alexander Grebenkin, and also in… Gorbunov, excuse me, that is Aleksandr Gorbunov. And then also in the capsule today is NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. We are awaiting confirmation that their de-orbit burn is complete, which is the last burn that's going to help set them up on a trajectory to splash down off the coast of Florida.

Speaker 1 (33:09):

De-orbit burn complete. Performance nominal. Nose cone closure initiated.

Speaker 2 (33:18):

Freedom copies.

Kate Tice (33:20):

All right, excellent news there. We heard the words we were looking for, nominal burn. So that means that that de-orbit burn was successful and nominal, meaning as expected. And we're now beginning to close the nose cone in preparation for atmospheric reentry.

Sandra Jones (33:39):

So in the background, Dragon is currently inhibiting those forward bulkhead Draco thrusters that we just used to complete the de-orbit burn, ensuring it's safe to latch the nose cone shut for reentry. Also, the vehicle has initiated the nitrox suit purge, which will help keep Nick, Suni, Butch, and Aleksandr cool and comfortable during reentry,

Sandra Jones (34:00):

… re-entry, which is coming up in about 20 minutes from now. At this point, the nose cone is closing and protecting the forward hatch for re-entry, and the crew are using their screens to continue to monitor the locking of the nose cone, which is done by a set of hooks. And as we mentioned earlier, that nose cone has remained open since September, so this is the first time it's closing in a few months.

Kate Tice (34:21):

Yeah, that's absolutely right. Now we will be expecting, as I mentioned before, an entry brief from SpaceX core. Again, that's the crew operations resource engineer who is seated in that room that you see there on your screen. That entry brief will provide updated times for anticipated splashdown as well as the loss of signal, or period of LOS. That briefing will also give us information such as wind speed and wave height at the expected splashdown location.

(34:55)
But all in all, everything has been great today. All events have been executed on time as expected, and we are looking forward to a splashdown of the Crew-9 crew at about 5:57 PM Eastern Time or 2:57 PM Pacific time. Between now and then, things are going to start moving quite quickly, in fact, if anything, this will have seemed like the slower part of the re-entry phase. We're going to go through, like I said, that period of loss of signal or LOS. That period is a few minutes long where we are unable to communicate or command to the capsule due to the plasma that builds up on the exterior of the capsule. That period, like I said, lasts for a couple minutes.

(35:45)
You will start to hear SpaceX CORE hail the Crew-9 crew a little bit earlier than expected because we in the past have actually regained communications a couple minutes earlier than initially anticipated. We'll go through that period of loss of signal, that entry period that specifically when the Dragon spacecraft is reentering through the atmosphere. Approximately at about 18,000 feet, when the capsule is traveling at 350 miles per hour, we will see our first views of parachutes for the day. That's one of my favorite moments of return sequences is when we get to see the drogue parachutes. We'll see the drogues come out. Those drogues will help slow the vehicle down to about 119 miles per hour. And then that is when the main parachutes will come out from the Dragon spacecraft and then ultimately end in splashdown.

Sandra Jones (36:49):

And we are hearing confirmation that the nose cone is closed and everything was nominal or as expected with that closure. So as we begin the second half of entry, Dragon is now beginning to inject cooled nitrox into the air being delivered to the spacesuits worn by Nick, Suni, Butch, and Alexander. Again, this is what will allow the crew to remain comfortable while external temperatures reach 3,500°F as they re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. So the heat shield is pointing forward leading Dragon to the landing site.

Kate Tice (37:24):

Yeah. Now speaking of the heat shield, Dragon's primary heat shield is comprised of PICA 3.0, which stands for Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator. The first-gen PICA was initially developed by NASA for studying and sampling comets within our solar system.

Sandra Jones (37:43):

SpaceX partnered with NASA to develop PICA-X, which was the second generation product used on all Dragon 1 cargo resupply service missions that resupplied the International Space Station on 20 missions. PICA 3.0 was developed specifically for use on Dragon 2 crew and cargo with enhanced structural and thermal capabilities that allowed the heat shield to be even more effective in the way that it utilized the ability to make that heat ablate as it goes through the Earth's atmosphere.

Kate Tice (38:34):

The remainder of Dragon is composed primarily of a SpaceX proprietary ablative material. It's another class of thermal protection, which is lighter weight versus PICA and protects the underlying composite structure during re-entry to ensure the structural capabilities are maintained.

Sandra Jones (38:53):

While Dragon will experience temperatures well over 3,000 degrees during peak re-entry conditions, the characteristics of the thermal protection system, coupled with the environmental control and life support system and the pressurized interior will ensure that Nick, Suni, Butch, and Alexander stay cool and comfortable during all phases of re-entry through splashdown.

Kate Tice (39:15):

Now if you've just recently joined us, we hope to regain views of our crew members inside Dragon Freedom, but we don't have those available at the moment due to ground station coverage, so we will bring those back to you as soon as we can. Now, after Dragon Freedom has re-entered the Earth's atmosphere, a series of parachutes will deploy to slow the crew's descent. First, will be the two drogue parachutes followed by the four main parachutes, and those will guide Dragon to its first contact with Earth since it launched back in September. Dragon will automatically deploy these parachutes when different pressure and positioning sensors on the spacecraft detect that they're at the right speed and altitude.

Sandra Jones (40:02):

Vehicle velocity at drogue deploy is approximately 350 miles per hour and they deploy at about 18,000 feet. Now, when the vehicle velocity at main deploy is approximately 119 miles per hour and they deploy at about 6,500 feet. When Dragon splashes down in the water, the vehicle velocity will be about 16 miles per hour, so you can really see how those parachutes help to slow down the crew inside the capsule. The highest G-load the crew is expected to experience today is about three to five Gs.

Kate Tice (40:34):

Now when you think about really fun roller coasters, they're about in that range. I'm sure that our crew on board will be well-equipped to experience those Gs. It's nothing for them. They go through much more intense training.

Sandra Jones (40:53):

And so we are continuing to make our way through a number of milestones today. We did have trunk separation-

CORE (40:59):

Freedom. SpaceX. Nose cone is secure for entry.

Commander Nick Hague (41:02):

Freedom copies.

Kate Tice (41:13):

All right, great news there. That tells us that the final physical configuration change for Dragon is complete. We have closed that nose cone. This is the last physical change that Dragon undergoes prior to re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. It's important that that nose cone is completely closed, because underneath it is not only where the four forward Draco thrusters are located, but it's also because that is where the forward hatch is located. That is the hatch that is utilized for the crew to ingress and egress from the station while it is docked on board.

(41:53)
And since our capsules are flight-proven and we reuse them on future space flights, we want to make sure that all of the integrity of that hardware remains intact. So that nose cone is successfully closed. And we're going to start moving pretty quickly here. As I mentioned before, we'll go through loss of signal, we'll get that signal back several minutes later and then we'll see the parachute action.

Sandra Jones (42:20):

Yep. And then that's all ahead of splashdown off the coast of Florida. We're targeting Tallahassee as our splashdown zone today at 2:57 PM Pacific time this afternoon. Now you did mention the call to the crew. They'll do some additional calculations following that burn and potentially let us know if that splashdown time has changed at all. But right now we are continuing to target 2:57 PM. And you can see there on your screen a path of where Dragon will be re-entering today. So if you are in the southern tip of Mexico, you might have the opportunity to see Dragon. Because it's a daytime splashdown, you probably won't have too great of views, but potentially you'll have the opportunity to get a glimpse of it there.

Kate Tice (43:06):

Once again, Dragon operators, they're monitoring the progress of Dragon through this re-entry phase. That is SpaceX Mission Control located here in Hawthorne, California. That is also where the crew operations and resource engineer is seated. That person is the voice that we have heard multiple times and will continue to hear as the primary point of contact to the crew on board Dragon Freedom. We will also hear the voice of Commander Nick Hague. Basically, after we hear the CORE communicate something, we will hear Nick Hague indicate that they copy, that they heard the message well. Some sort of recognition that the message was received.

Sandra Jones (43:58):

And if you joined us yesterday for our coverage during the undocking, we were communicating through something that's called a Big Loop. We do that when we were in integrated operations with the International-

CORE (44:09):

Freedom. SpaceX. For entry sequence. Report when ready to copy.

Commander Nick Hague (44:12):

Ready to copy.

CORE (44:21):

All right, I've got some updated times for you. Our comm blackout start time is 21:44. Our comm blackout end time is 21:51. And our splashdown time is the same per your displays, 21:57.

Commander Nick Hague (44:36):

Okay. Understand comm blackout start 21:44. Stop 21:51. Splashdown per display.

CORE (44:58):

That's a good read back. And with that, please report when tablets are secured behind the elastic bands, restraints are tight, and visors are down.

Commander Nick Hague (45:12):

[inaudible 00:45:12] copy. Wilco.

Sandra Jones (45:22):

And with that communication from the CORE or crew operations resource engineer here in Hawthorne to Commander Nick Hague of Crew Dragon Freedom, we did hear that the loss of signal period is still at 2:44 PM Pacific, but we had a one-minute adjustment to the acquisition of signal. Now that's going to now be at 2:51 PM Pacific time. However, our splashdown time remains the same at 2:57 PM Pacific time this afternoon off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida.

Kate Tice (45:51):

So all good news there as Dragon continues to make its way home with the Crew-Nine crew. As we've mentioned before, we are splashing down on the Gulf Coast. We have ability to splash down on either side of Florida, but the location site just outside of Tallahassee, Florida is the site that was selected today due to best recovery conditions. And as Sandra mentioned before, weather is always a watch item, but everything is looking great for that particular recovery location. I'm sure once we start getting views from the recovery vessel, I have a feeling it's going to be a pretty beautiful afternoon.

Sandra Jones (46:35):

And we did mention that of course this is a daylight splashdown, so we should be getting some great views. We do have a couple of spacecraft called the WB-57, which are high altitude planes that NASA utilizes during splashdown operations. Those are in route and going to be tracking the capsule as it makes its way through the atmosphere and should be providing some good views for us. Kate and I were just chatting about how we haven't had a daytime splashdown in a little while, so we're looking forward to the views along with you.

Kate Tice (47:03):

Yeah. Nighttime views are also great because we can see that capsule streaking through the night sky quite brightly. Like Sandra, you said earlier, daylight will be a little bit less bright, but we will definitely be able to see the SpaceX recovery team operations much clearer. I could also imagine it's probably a little bit easier for the team themselves to do their work in daytime than at nighttime. We'll see them rush in really quickly with a couple of fast boats as they begin the initial safety checks and sweeps of the Dragon capsule, while also retrieving the parachutes from the surface of the ocean.

(47:45)
The main recovery vessel will continue to make its way closer to the Dragon capsule. It is stationed a couple miles away from the actual recovery location, the splashdown location for obvious safety purposes. So it takes a little while for that vessel to make its way over. But once it's closer, we'll have even better views of those recovery operations.

Sandra Jones (48:10):

And you may be wondering why sometimes we splashdown in the daytime versus the nighttime. And believe me, we would all love for these operations to happen during regular daytime working hours, but unfortunately orbital mechanics just doesn't quite work out that way. So it has to deal with the location of the International Space Station as well as where the splashdown zone is on earth in that trajectory, as well as the phasing. So as we mentioned earlier, sometimes we have phasing as short as six hours, sometimes in excess of 30-plus hours. It just depends on where the targeted area is that the capsule is going to splashdown. Today's phasing has been 17 hours since undocking occurred at 10:05 PM Pacific yesterday evening for us here in Hawthorne. Early, early wee hours for folks on the East Coast and other areas of the United States.

Kate Tice (49:01):

Yeah. But regardless of whether it's daytime or nighttime, the SpaceX recovery team has trained and practiced and rehearsed for it all. So regardless of daylight, they are really efficient with those operations. But like you said, Sandra, it has been a minute since we have seen a daytime splashdown on a NASA SpaceX crew mission. The last daytime recovery was on Crew-4, which was the debut flight for the capsule flying today, the spacecraft known as Dragon Freedom. And so yeah, kind of a fun fact there in terms of the timing of that daylight splashdowns.

(49:48)
Once again standing by for more communication with the crew. The next event that we have coming up is the start of that period known as loss of signal. That is the period still expected at 2:44 PM Pacific time. This lasts for several minutes while the capsule is making its way through the Earth's atmosphere. The heat shield located at the bottom of the capsule, really doing all the work at that point in time in terms of using the atmosphere to slow the capsule down from its orbital speeds of 17,500 mile per hour.

Commander Nick Hague (50:29):

SpaceX. Freedom. Our tablets are secure, restraints are tightened, visors down. We are configured for entry.

CORE (50:40):

Freedom. I copied. Tablets are secured, restraints are tight and visors down.

Kate Tice (50:56):

All right. Great news there in terms of continuing to make progress. That back and forth communication we heard was just letting CORE know that per their instructions, Crew-9 has now put away everything that was necessary in order to begin the re-entry, including those tablets that were located on their legs. Those are now stowed away. They've tightened that safety harness that we see there and the visors are now down. With all that being said, let's take a minute to meet our returning crew. US Space Force Colonel Nick Hague is your Crew-9 Commander. He was selected by NASA as an astronaut in 2013. This was his second space flight to the International Space Station and third launch overall. He spent 171 days in space with Crew-9 and has a career total of 374 days in space. During his mission, he completed a spacewalk with astronaut Suni Williams. That was his fourth spacewalk earning him a career total of 25 hours, 56 minutes of spacewalking time.

(52:04)
Before Crew-9. Haig previously served as a crew member of Expedition 59 and 60 back in 2019. He flew with Alexei Ovchinin and NASA's Christina Koch. So this is his second time sharing the space station with Ovchinin. The Kansas native is a test pilot and distinguished graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. Nick spent five months in Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He voluntarily transferred from the United States Air Force to US Space Force in 2021 and is an active colonel. His wife Katie is a retired US Air Force Colonel and they have two sons.

Sandra Jones (52:48):

NASA astronaut Suni Williams is a mission specialist for Crew-9. This was her third visit to the International Space Station. She originally launched aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft and arrived at the Space Station on June 6th. Following the agency's decision to return Starliner uncrewed, she became an Expedition 71 and 72 crew member where she logged 286 days in space on this mission. But Suni has a total of 608 days in space, the second-most time in space by a US astronaut.

CORE (53:24):

Five minutes until predicted comm blackout. We'll see you on the other side at 21:51.

Commander Nick Hague (53:35):

21:51. Talk to you soon.

Sandra Jones (53:40):

And with that call out from the crew operations resource engineer to Commander Nick Hague, letting them know that everything is looking good ahead of the loss of signal period. We will see the crew on the other side of the loss of signal period at 2:51 PM Pacific time this afternoon. Continuing on about Suni Williams who has a total of 608 days in space the second-most time in space by a US astronaut. Former NASA astronaut, Peggy Whitson actually ranks first for the US with 675 days in space. Suni conducted two spacewalks and has completed nine over the course of her career for a total of 62 hours, six minutes of spacewalking time. She ranks fourth on the list of cumulative times spacewalking by a female astronaut and she has fallen on four different spacecraft types including the Space Shuttle, Soyuz, Starliner, and now Dragon. Previously she served on Expedition 14 and 15 in 2006 and 2007 and again with Expedition 32 and 33 in 2012. She's a retired US Navy captain and is a proud graduate of the US Naval Academy and was the first astronaut to run a marathon in space.

Kate Tice (55:00):

Pretty awesome stuff. Now, NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore is also serving as a mission specialist today. This is his third space flight and just like Suni, logged 286 days in space. He conducted one spacewalk and completed five over the course of his career, earning him a total spacewalking time of 21 hours and two minutes. He's flown on four different spacecraft types throughout his career. The Space Shuttle, Soyuz, Starliner, and now Dragon. Previously, the Mount Juliet, Tennessee native served on STS 129 in 2009 and Expedition 41 and 42 from 2014 to 2015. Wilmore is also a retired captain in the US Navy.

Sandra Jones (55:46):

Next up is Alexander Gorbunov, who is the third mission specialist serving on today's mission. Crew-9 was his first space flight to the Space Station, earning him a total of 171 days in space over the course of his career. Gorbunov along with Nick Hague, saw the arrival of four visiting vehicles and saw the departure of four as well. The duo orbited the earth more than 2,700 times since September. Before his cosmonaut selection in 2018, Gorbunov worked as an engineer for a rocket space corporation and help support cargo spacecraft launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. So if you are just joining us, we are continuing to bring you live coverage of Crew-9's return to Earth following their mission aboard the International Space Station where they completed science and research investigations. We are targeting splashdown off the coast of Florida at 2:57 PM Pacific time. The next major milestone that we'll look ahead towards is what we call loss of signal or LOS when we won't have communications with the crew because they will be reentering the Earth's atmosphere. And during this process there is plasma that builds up around that heat shield, so we are not able to communicate with the crew. But we are anticipating to regain communications with the crew at a short time from now at 2:51 PM Pacific time today.

Kate Tice (57:24):

As we said before, everything continues to look good for the return of the Crew- 9 team. We are about to go into that period of loss of signal. Once we get views of the crew inside the capsule, once again, we will be sure to bring those to you. But that period of time is when plasma is building up on the exterior of the capsule generating heat in excess of 3,500°F. So we are unable to communicate or command the spacecraft at that time and that includes unfortunately video feeds as well. As soon as we get the views back inside Dragon, we will bring those to you.

(58:09)
But until then we are going to stand by and continue to monitor the progress of Dragon. Like Sandra just said, we are anticipating the blackout period to begin at 2:51 PM Pacific time, 5:51 PM Eastern time. This will last for several minutes. It's not super exact even though we are predicting acquisition of signal or AOS to come back at 5:51 PM Eastern time. In the past, we have regained communication sometimes a little bit earlier than that. So we'll probably start to hear CORE begin to hail Crew Dragon a minute or two prior to that anticipated acquisition of signal.

(58:52)
But right now, Nick, Suni, Butch and Alexander are seated in their seats inside Dragon Freedom. Their visors are down and they have put away or stored the tablets they had located on their upper leg to monitor Dragon's progress. Now they will be utilizing the touch screen displays where the current operation and future operations will be displayed as they are able to monitor Dragon's progress continually. As I said before, Dragon is autonomous, meaning it is flying itself. So the crew stands by and monitors and those touch screen displays are what will be allowing them to do so and prepare for events such as parachute deploy.

Sandra Jones (59:41):

And while on board the International Space Station, Nick, Suni, Butch and Alexander contributed to over 900 hours of science and research investigations, which is really the key purpose of the International Space Station. Now, the International Space Station is celebrating a major milestone this year where they will be celebrating 25 years of continuous human presence in November. So if you're younger than 25 years, you've never known a day where there hasn't been a human living and working aboard the International Space Station, contributing to key science and research investigations that impact our lives here on Earth. There's research being done on Parkinson's, on osteoporosis, on cancer research and a variety of other studies.

(01:00:24)
Additionally, the Microgravity Laboratory provides a jumping off point for us as we venture back to The Moon and onto Mars through longer duration space flights. One such example that the crew worked on during this mission was a alternative exercise device. In microgravity, the crew has to exercise for about two hours a day because they're not having the effects of gravity on their body. So to prevent bone and muscle loss, we counteract that with two hours of exercise per day. On board the International Space Station, they have three ways in which they can exercise. They have a bike, they have a treadmill, and they have similar to a weightlifting machine that counteracts the microgravity environment. But a particular experiment that this crew tested out was a combination of all three of those in one smaller device. And this is really critical as we continue on to The Moon, Mars, and beyond, because space is really important in spacecraft. So if we have something smaller that the crew might be able to utilize that can potentially help us venture out even further into the solar system.

(01:01:27)
Science is really the name of the game when it comes to the International Space Station. Some of the other science highlights that took place during this increment that are particularly interesting to me was we had the first wooden satellite that was deployed. This is a study to see if other materials might be more resourceful or renewable in space. So I'm really excited to see the results of that one as well.

(01:01:52)
Additionally, we had a couple of spacewalks that took place to not only provide maintenance to the International Space Station, but also where we swabbed the outside of the Space Station near vents to see if any microbes that … We all have microbes on us, to see if any of those could survive in the harsh environment of space, which again is very important for us to know and understand as we continue to The Moon, Mars, and beyond.

Kate Tice (01:02:17):

Very exciting stuff. Now, at this point, we have now entered the communications blackout period for the Dragon spacecraft. This last approximately seven minutes due to plasma formation around the spacecraft itself. During this time, no vehicle telemetry is received by mission control or the recovery team and no external commanding of the vehicle or voice communication is possible.

(01:02:45)
But as a reminder, Dragon is designed to fly itself. During re-entry, the vehicle will be slowing down from orbital velocity, which is approximately 17,500 miles per hour. The top temperature that Dragon will experience upon re-entry is 3,500°F. This blackout period, as I said before, we expect it to last about seven minutes today, concluding at 5:51 PM Eastern time or 2:51 PM Pacific time. We right there have our first view of Dragon Freedom coming home to Earth

Sandra Jones (01:03:24):

And that view is from the WB-57, which is one of NASA's high altitude planes that is tracking. Now because of the way that this camera is configured, it does look like it is dark, but it is indeed daytime and you're beginning to see that plasma trail as Dragon re-enters the Earth's atmosphere. All of that is expected. We are anticipating an acquisition of signal around 2:51 PM Pacific time. So just minutes from now. And you may hear the CORE begin to hail out or call Dragon for communications and see if we can potentially get communications with them a little bit earlier.

(01:04:01)
Following this, we'll have two events in rapid succession. We'll have the drogue parachutes deploy at 2:53 PM Pacific followed by the mains just one minute later at 2:54 PM Pacific time, ahead of a splashdown at 2:57 PM Pacific time off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida.

(01:04:18)
[inaudible 01:04:30]

Kate Tice (01:04:30):

Pretty incredible views of the Dragon spacecraft making its way home back to planet Earth with the Crew-9 astronauts on board. Once again, this view is coming from the WB-57 plane. That heat shield we can see doing magnificent work as it works to-

CORE (01:04:53):

Freedom. SpaceX. Comm check.

Kate Tice (01:05:00):

All right, we're going to start hearing the SpaceX crew operations resource engineer.

Commander Nick Hague (01:05:05):

SpaceX, Freedom is with you. 4.16. We're enjoying the ride.

CORE (01:05:14):

Copy that Freedom.

Kate Tice (01:05:19):

Great news there from Commander Nick Hague reporting back.

CORE (01:05:22):

We see a healthy flight computer. Expect automated chute deployment.

Commander Nick Hague (01:05:29):

Freedom copies.

Kate Tice (01:05:34):

Like we said before, things moving very quickly as Dragon Freedom makes its way home. Next event coming up will be deployment of the drogue parachutes. This occurs around 18,000 feet.

CORE (01:05:49):

GPS has converged. Expect nominal altitude for drogue chute deployment.

Kate Tice (01:06:02):

We're about two minutes away from deployment of those drogue parachutes. Now the heat shield is continuing to work to slow the vehicle down. That entry period, the Dragon spacecraft went from orbital velocity about 17,500 miles per hour down to about 350 miles per hour. So that really gives you a sense of why that plasma builds up on the exterior of the capsule thanks to the heat shield and the work that it does. Those drogue parachutes will slow it down from 350 to about 119 miles per hour. We can see-

CORE (01:06:37):

15 kilometers. Brace for drogue window.

Kate Tice (01:06:42):

We can see seat rotation happening inside the capsule. Great to get those first views of our crew members. Once again, the capsules are going about 350 miles per hour when the drogues are deployed. Those drogue parachutes that we manufacture here in-house are going to slow the spacecraft down to 119 miles per hour. And that is when we will see the main parachutes deploy, and that occurs about 6,000 feet above the ocean's surface.

Sandra Jones (01:07:17):

And we are expecting drogue deployment at 2:53 PM Pacific. So we should see it any second now. And there you are getting a great view of Crew-9 inside Dragon Freedom as it returns back to earth. We are awaiting the drogue deploys. This view coming from the WB-57 high altitude plane. And there you see it on your screen. Drogue deployment.

CORE (01:07:42):

Drogue decent rate normal.

Kate Tice (01:07:42):

You can hear the crowd here.

CORE (01:07:42):

Visual on two healthy drogues.

Kate Tice (01:07:42):

Crowd here very excited as Dragon Freedom continues to make its way back to planet Earth.

Sandra Jones (00:00):

Sandra Jones (01:08:03):

Next step, we'll stand by for the main deployment of the parachutes. The mains are quite a bit larger, you'll be able to notice the difference on your screen once they deploy and they continue to ensure that the Dragon spacecraft slows down even further. As we mentioned, Freedom will be traveling 16 miles per hour when it splashes down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida here at 2:57 PM Pacific Time this afternoon. And there we go.

Speaker 3 (01:08:30):

We have visual on four healthy mains.

Kate Tice (01:08:40):

That view was from inside one of the buckets where the parachutes are located, so we see a great view there of the reefing on those parachutes. And as those main parachutes begin to inflate fully, four beautiful healthy mains. Now awaiting visuals of Splashdown. We'll start to hear Commander Nick Hague.

Speaker 3 (01:09:06):

Copy 1,000.

Kate Tice (01:09:09):

As we heard right there, commander Nick Hague will be calling out the altitude of the Dragon capsule from here on out. Landing in water is simpler and provides more margin against unlikely parachute issues. You can see those parachutes continuing to slow the Dragon capsule down.

Sandra Jones (01:09:30):

And if you're just joining us, you're looking at-

Speaker 3 (01:09:33):

800 meters.

Sandra Jones (01:09:34):

… a live view of Crew-9 just minutes away from splashing down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida. Splashdown, two minutes from now at 2:57 PM Pacific. We do have four healthy mains really doing the job there. Just breathtaking views of a calm glass-like ocean off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida. Crew-9 just minutes away from splashing down.

Kate Tice (01:09:58):

This is really such an incredible shot. That was-

Speaker 3 (01:10:03):

Copy 600.

Kate Tice (01:10:05):

… That was a live view from our recovery vessel. Megan, which is stationed a couple miles away from the Splashdown site. We can see the crew there using their restraints as resting places for their arms. They were just in space moments ago, so their arms were able to float freely.

Speaker 3 (01:10:30):

400 meters.

Kate Tice (01:10:34):

This is a gorgeous Bluebird day here that we have for the Splashdown of Crew-9. It's incredible to think that the Dragon capsule just minutes ago was going over 17,000 miles per hour and now gently coasting to a soft Splashdown.

Speaker 5 (01:10:55):

200.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):

Copy. 200 meters, brace for Splashdown.

Kate Tice (01:11:10):

As you can see there on your screen, continuing to monitor progress of the Dragon spacecraft and we're going to stand by for Splashdown located in the Gulf of America off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida.

Sandra Jones (01:11:32):

And Splashdown. Crew-9 back on Earth.

Speaker 5 (01:11:36):

And SpaceX Freedom Splashdown. Good main release.

Speaker 3 (01:11:52):

Copy Splashdown. We see main chutes cut. Nick, Aleks, Butch, Suni on behalf of SpaceX, welcome home.

Speaker 5 (01:12:09):

It is such an amazing thing. What a ride. I see a capsule full of grins ear to ear.

Sandra Jones (01:12:31):

And as you can see on your screen, we have visual confirmation of Splashdown. Dragon Freedom has returned home and NASA astronauts…

Speaker 3 (01:12:39):

System safety verifications are in progress. We'll report back when recovery personnel are en route.

Speaker 5 (01:12:50):

I understand we're in section 2 of four decimal 800 landing response. And looking for your word [inaudible 01:12:59] is necessary.

Kate Tice (01:13:07):

In the distance we can see the recovery vessel making its way.

Speaker 3 (01:13:10):

Copy. You're in section 2 for the environmental assessment in four dot 800. That is not necessary today.

Speaker 5 (01:13:21):

Understand. [inaudible 01:13:24].

Sandra Jones (01:13:26):

So we will continue to have communications between the core and Nick Hague, the commander of Crew Dragon Freedom, which just splashed down two minutes ago off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida. Dragon Freedom has returned home with NASA astronauts, Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos Cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. They're back on Earth after approximately 17 hours of a return journey from space.

Kate Tice (01:13:49):

The SpaceX recovery ship and team have been waiting for Dragon Splashdown and they will now make their way to the Splashdown location. The teams have been ready and waiting about three nautical miles away, so it's going to take them about 30 minutes or so to make their way to-

Speaker 5 (01:14:10):

SpaceX Freedom. [inaudible 01:14:11] stable one.

Speaker 3 (01:14:10):

Copy. Stable one, we see the same.

Kate Tice (01:14:16):

It's going to take about 30 minutes for the recovery team to make their way over to Nick, Suni, Butch, and Aleksandr who are still seated and secured inside that Dragon spacecraft there on your screen. Incredible views there of that thermal protection system, or TPS. That Dragon capsule was pristine white color before it departed the station and we can see how the reentry phase, the thermal protection system did its job. Now if you're wondering what that hole, that like bucket area is, that is underneath the side hatch, that is where the main parachutes were stored. So when we saw the Dragon capsule docked at station, it looked very different. The panel that protects and covers the main parachutes, that was still intact as well as the panels that enclose where the drogue parachutes are located, we can see those fast boats-

Speaker 3 (01:15:13):

Freedom SpaceX is go for recovery personnel to approach. Expect personnel alongside in the next few minutes.

Speaker 5 (01:15:24):

Freedom copies.

Kate Tice (01:15:26):

We can see those fast boats, we weren't kidding when we said they were fast. While it does take about 30 minutes for the main recovery vessel to make its way over to the capsule, these fast boats will be doing a couple of things simultaneously. A couple of them are going to be working to retrieve the parachutes that you see in the background there of this drone shot. Those parachutes will be retrieved from the ocean surface. We want to make sure we are able to pull those out. The recovery vessel there closest to the spacecraft is going to be performing some safety checks. We can see there they're using an instrument that is basically working to detect if there are any hypergolic vapors or fumes that are still residing in and/or around the Draco thruster nozzles or outlets.

(01:16:20)
The hypergolic fuel, which is necessary for on orbit burns to maneuver the spacecraft. Unfortunately, those hypergolics are unable to be breathed, they are toxic. And this team here is doing those initial safety checks to make sure that it is safe for the rest of the recovery team to approach the spacecraft. They're also checking to make sure that any residuals from the pyros are safe and are not going to cause any issues. We can see the team working their way around the spacecraft to do basically these sniff tests on all of those Draco thrusters.

Sandra Jones (01:17:10):

And as we continue to await the recovery of our Dragon spacecraft with NASA astronauts, Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov inside, Dragon has already autonomously completed several steps to safe itself following Splashdown. We are continuing to see Dragon in what is known as stable one configuration. That's kind of the ideal configuration following Splashdown, it's upright and the Dragon capsules in the right configuration for it to be hoisted into the recovery vessel, Megan, which you do see a little ways off in your screen approaching Dragon. We'll continue to remain live on air with you through that recovery process all the way through the point where the crew is extracted from the Dragon spacecraft. Now if you are just joining us, the mission has gone smoothly so far. Dragon successfully Splashdown off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida at 2:57 PM Pacific, 5:57 PM Eastern Time this afternoon.

Kate Tice (01:18:15):

Approximately 17 hours prior to Splashdown, Dragon autonomously undocked from the International Space Station, completed a series of departure burns, jettisoned its trunk section, and performed its final burn the de- orbit burn. This placed the Dragon spacecraft on a trajectory toward Tallahassee, Florida. Dragon successfully re-entered the Earth's atmosphere followed by deployment of its parachutes to slow the spacecraft down to a gentle splashdown. We're now going to follow the…

Speaker 3 (01:18:47):

Freedom hypergolf sweeps and unfired ordinance checks are nominal, rigging is in progress. Approximately 25 minutes until capsule lift, standby for PMC with SpaceX flight surgeon.

Speaker 5 (01:18:58):

Copy.

Sandra Jones (01:19:06):

And so what we did just hear there was communications that those hypergolf checks were complete. They didn't find any of that upon those checks, so we'll continue to move through the timeline. Next up is a process called rigging, which you see happening right now on your screen. This is when a SpaceX recovery personnel actually works to climb aboard the capsule and work through procedures ahead of lifting onto the nest of the recovery vessel, Megan. We heard it's going to be about 25 minutes or so until that lift actually takes place.

Speaker 3 (01:19:45):

Okay, Freedom, the next call will be from a SpaceX flight surgeon on Dragon and Ground Private.

Speaker 5 (01:19:54):

Understand. Thank you.

Kate Tice (01:20:00):

Call outs there indicating that the crew will have the opportunity to do a quick check-in with the SpaceX flight surgeon. This is standard procedure for every Dragon spacecraft when it returns to Earth. It's just an initial check-in to make sure everybody is doing okay. They will also have another check-in with the flight surgeon once they are on board that recovery vessel that you see there in the background. We can now see that SpaceX Recovery team member, they're on top of the Dragon spacecraft. They are going to be working to install plugs in the Draco thrusters to ensure that no more hypergolic fumes or vapors come out from the spacecraft. They'll also place harnessing around the spacecraft that are required in order to lift it out of the water. Go ahead, Sandra.

Sandra Jones (01:21:01):

Continuing to get some views of the recovery personnel, both the main recovery vessel, Megan, as well as some of those fast boats that we've discussed previously. It looks like just a beautiful day there out off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida. Weather was pristine. We were able to get undocked from the International Space Station as expected at 10:05 PM Pacific time yesterday evening. And Crew Dragon has since completed steps ahead of its Splashdown at 2:57 PM Pacific. And we're now stepping through procedures to get Dragon hoisted up onto the Megan recovery vessel and get the crew extracted out of the spacecraft. And you did see some of the parachutes that were near the spacecraft. Upon detection of landing, Dragon automatically releases those main parachutes to prevent wind from pulling the spacecraft. Dragon then automatically safes any pyrotechnics that may still be present on the vehicle and may automatically perform additional minor system reconfigurations. The astronauts will remain seated and in their suits at this point, but the onboard air conditioning keeps things temperature controlled inside the spacecraft so the crew remains comfortable and the communication systems-

Speaker 4 (01:22:13):

Freedom SpaceX, comm check.

Speaker 5 (01:22:14):

SpaceX, this is Freedom. [inaudible 01:22:22] loud and clear.

Speaker 3 (01:22:27):

Copy that. Freedom have you loud and clear as well, and Dragon to Ground is no longer private.

Speaker 5 (01:22:35):

Understand. Thank you.

Kate Tice (01:22:40):

As we saw there on the screen, we have a couple of fast boats in the recovery fleet that have quickly moved into the Splashdown location. They are being followed by one of the main recovery vessels which will move into position upwind of the spacecraft. The two fast boats have very specific roles, excuse me. The first approach is focused on immediate safety inspection, as we saw, they do this for spacecraft integrity and checking for any presence of those hypergolic propellant vapors. And this ensures that it is safe for the recovery vessel to approach Dragon. Once Dragon is cleared for full approach, as we heard is the case today, the team begins rigging the spacecraft for water recovery by the recovery ship. The second fast boat is responsible for parachute recovery and also serves as a redundant boat to the first one that makes the initial approach to the Dragon spacecraft. As we saw a little bit earlier, we were also able to see one of the recovery team members get on a jet ski to help gather up the parachutes that were automatically detached from the Dragon spacecraft upon Splashdown.

Sandra Jones (01:23:59):

And it will take a little over 10 minutes for the recovery crew to complete their safety checks. Once they complete, the team will begin preparing Dragon to be lifted. And as you see, they are preparing for that to take place at this point. As part of the preparation for this lift, one member of the recovery team has climbed on top of the spacecraft already so they can attach Dragon's hoist rings and connect to the lifting lines. It will take us less than an hour to raise Dragon to the recovery boat and remove the crew from the spacecraft. After medical checkouts, the crew will return to land within four hours by helicopter. And if no additional medical assistance is needed, the crew will board a waiting NASA plane and depart for Houston. And as we continue to await Dragon to be hoisted up onto the ship, we have a very special treat. NASA public affairs officer, Jaden Jennings who is actually on the recovery vessel and had a bird's eye view of the Splashdown today. Jaden, how are you? How was the view from the recovery vessel?

Jaden Jennings (01:25:40):

Hi, Sandra, how do you hear me?

Sandra Jones (01:25:42):

I've got you loud and clear, Jaden, and it's so great to hear you.

Jaden Jennings (01:25:46):

Awesome. So Splashdown, Sandra, was nothing short of spectacular-

Speaker 3 (01:25:48):

Freedom be advised we are transitioning the forward link, comm will be unavailable for approximately five minutes.

Speaker 5 (01:25:59):

Freedom copies.

Sandra Jones (01:26:04):

Thanks so much, Jaden. We did just have some communications letting us know that we'll have about a five-minute period where we won't be able to hear from the crew, so please go ahead tell us how was the view from the recovery vessel?

Jaden Jennings (01:26:16):

Absolutely. Yeah, I was mentioning earlier Splashdown was nothing short of spectacular and we were stationed about one and a half nautical miles away from the Splashdown zone and had great visuals here on the recovery vessel, Megan. We actually saw a little of the smoke trail as the spacecraft was coming in and then moments later we spotted those Drogue shoots and this was quickly followed by four healthy white and orange main parachutes. We then tracked Dragon all the way down as it slowly propelled into the ocean. And I think I speak for all of us on the ship when I say a new core memory was made today and we are looking forward to having Crew-9 on board with us a little later.

Kate Tice (01:26:53):

Jaden, that is amazing. Now obviously we are watching it here on camera and the landing conditions look pretty good, but how was it from your perspective? What is the sea state out there?

Jaden Jennings (01:27:07):

Absolutely, absolutely. So we've had optimal conditions for Splashdown and today it is sunny and 63 degrees outside right now with clear skies, light winds, and calm seas. The sea looks absolutely beautiful right now and light blue with the sun reflecting from it and, Kate, I think the crew is going to like what they feel weather-wise on this picture perfect day for Splashdown off the coast of Tallahassee.

Sandra Jones (01:27:32):

Thanks so much, Jaden. It certainly looks like a beautiful day. Can you tell us a little bit about the journey of the recovery forces to get to this point?

Jaden Jennings (01:27:41):

Sure. So one unique aspect of this recovery was the onboard training on station conducted for Butch and Suni to ensure they were ready to return on a Dragon spacecraft. That training covered all aspects of their return, including nominal and contingency departures, de-orbit burns, splashdown and post landing ops, which is what this team is preparing for now. As for the recovery teams themselves, we started the day taking a series of helicopters out to the vessel. And as standard the recovery director and crew support teams were on that first helicopter out and took the time to get everything prepared on the ship. About two hours before Splashdown, they deployed those fast boats and jet skis into the water. I was actually on the second helicopter out and we were on the vessel about an hour and a half before Splashdown and landed on top of the helicopter pad on the Megan. And the teams have been working diligently across their respective disciplines this week executing what can only be described, in my point of view, as a logistical masterpiece just ensuring every detail has been in place for Crew-9's return.

Kate Tice (01:28:47):

That is such great news. I'm so glad that you're able there to experience it in person. Now can you tell us a little bit about what's next to retrieve the crew for the recovery personnel on board?

Jaden Jennings (01:29:00):

Yeah, Kate. So coming up next Dragon will be hoisted into the OnDeck translation system or the Nest at the AFT end of the ship. And then we'll be translated pretty quickly towards that egress platform. We'll perform another series of safety checks as final precautionary measures just to make sure there are no hypergolic vapors present before opening that side hatch. And then once that side hatch of the spacecraft is open, the crew will be assisted out of the capsule one by one from NASA and SpaceX-

Speaker 3 (01:29:27):

Freedom, SpaceX comm check

Speaker 5 (01:29:28):

Freedoms got you loud and clear.

Speaker 3 (01:29:37):

Thanks Nick, I've got you loud and clear as well. We have completed our forward link transition.

Speaker 5 (01:29:45):

Copy.

Sandra Jones (01:30:04):

And, Jaden, if you did just want to go ahead and let us know what is next to retrieve the crew. We are continuing to get some great views on our screen but I know you have an even better view yourself.

Jaden Jennings (01:30:13):

Oh yeah, Sandra, this view is absolutely unbeatable. So just to kind of finish off what I was saying is once that side hatch of this spacecraft is open, that crew will be assisted out of the capsule one by one from NASA and SpaceX medical personnel where they will then head to the Med Bay. And after those medical checks, they will get on that first helicopter out and arrive at the airport where they will then board a NASA plane and then head back to Houston, Texas, at the Johnson Space Center to begin their post-flight period. And we're eager to see the Crew-9 astronauts back on Earth and we'll keep you updated on every moment of this process. With that, I'll toss it back over to you guys in Hawthorne.

Sandra Jones (01:30:52):

Thank you so much. That was Jaden Jennings, NASA public affairs officer who watched Freedom Splashdown firsthand from the recovery vessel, Megan. Thanks so much Jaden. So we are continuing to get these great views on our screen here of Freedom. As we mentioned, it splashed down at 2:57 PM Pacific time off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida. The recovery personnel are continuing to step through procedures to hoist Dragon onto the recovery vessel, Megan, there, which is now coming into view. You can see just how close Megan is at this point and that's that helicopter pad that Jaden was just discussing where the crew will fly off of onto the coast of Florida and then eventually they'll fly back to Houston.

Kate Tice (01:31:36):

Just underneath that helicopter pad is that translation deck where we will see the Nest once it is loaded up with the Dragon spacecraft on board. The Nest will be translated to the forward end of the recovery vessel and that is where our Crew-9 team members will egress from the Dragon spacecraft. Now here on your screen we can see dolphins actually who want to come and play with Dragon. Now one of the fast boats there in place working to assist the recovery team member. It's incredible. I just love these views. We really see them even better in daytime. But just seeing the recovery team work in tandem to step through each operation. And obviously they're getting quick assists from the honorary part of the recovery team, those dolphins, in the water there. Now the recovery team member that is crawling around the Dragon spacecraft, earlier we saw a view where it was like a Spider monkey pose, we can see that individual now standing in the bucket where the main parachutes were stored while Dragon was on orbit.

(01:32:57)
Obviously those main parachutes were utilized for Splashdown today, they were deployed and cut from the Dragon capsule. And one of the other fast boats of the recovery team working to pull those out of the water. Now the recovery team member that is there working on top of the Dragon capsule, earlier we saw that person performing safety checks. Now we can see some harnessing being placed around the capsule. This harnessing is what will be used to lift the Dragon capsule out of the water and onto the recovery vessel. Wow, we got a cute little pod of dolphins. It wasn't just one or two.

Sandra Jones (01:33:39):

I mean that water just looks beautiful. We had ideal Splashdown parameters today, obviously wave height near a concern. The weather is beautiful, as Jaden mentioned in the 60s, sunny. Looking forward to seeing Crew-9 exit the capsule here shortly once they get hoisted onto the recovery vessel, Megan.

Kate Tice (01:34:00):

We can see that recovery vessel slowly but surely closing the distance there between… Dolphin cam back again. We can see that the Dragon capsule and the recovery vessel, that distance is closing. Again, this is just one more step as we continue to work recovery operations for Dragon Freedom. And we anticipate the lift of the Dragon capsule to occur here in just a few minutes. Now once all of the rigging is on the capsule and it's hooked up to the recovery vessel, we will see the hydraulic arm, which is that bridge like structure there at the AFT end of the recovery vessel. We'll see that articulate backwards and that's a good sign that we're getting even closer to pulling the capsule out of the water. It will then move forward and the capsule will be placed inside of what you can see there is basically a basket, we call it the Dragon Nest, where that's where the capsule will be placed in order for it to be translated to the forward end of the vessel and for the astronauts to egress.

Sandra Jones (01:35:17):

And before that does take place, we'll have potentially views of the rigor go ahead and jump off of the spacecraft there.

Kate Tice (01:35:27):

That typically occurs when the spacecraft is a little bit closer to the recovery vessel and we usually get a really good view of that particular operation from one of the onboard cameras from the recovery vessel. That is an operation that I have a lot of respect and admiration for, that individual that does that.

Sandra Jones (01:35:58):

So again, Dragon continuing to get closer and closer to the recovery vessel, Megan. You see some of those ropes now coming into view as well. If you are just joining us Crew-9 splashed down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida at 2:57 PM Pacific Time with NASA astronauts, Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore, Suni Williams and Roscosmos Cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. They're now working through procedures to hoist this spacecraft up onto the recovery vessel, Megan.

Kate Tice (01:36:35):

We just saw that hydraulic arm get lowered into the lifting position. That arm will be the mechanism that is utilized to lift Dragon up and out of the water and into the Nest located there at the AFT end of the recovery vessel.

Sandra Jones (01:36:55):

And the recovery vessel being used today is, as we've mentioned multiple times, is named Megan. But that's actually after NASA astronaut Megan MacArthur who flew on Crew-2 a couple of years ago. We're getting some views now from actually inside the boat.

Kate Tice (01:37:18):

Yeah, you're exactly right. This view is straight down the recovery vessel, that platform that was closest to the camera, that is the egress platform.

Speaker 3 (01:37:29):

Freedom, rigging is almost complete. Approximately five minutes until capsule lift.

Kate Tice (01:37:36):

Great news there from SpaceX export.

Speaker 5 (01:37:37):

Freedom copies.

Kate Tice (01:37:40):

So about five minutes left until we see Dragon Freedom get lifted out of the water. That hydraulic arm, as I said before, is the mechanism that will lift it. It's quite swift actually, the whole process of getting the spacecraft-

Speaker 3 (01:37:56):

Brace for capsule lift.

Speaker 5 (01:38:01):

Bracing.

Kate Tice (01:38:05):

There it goes. Dragon Freedom being lifted out of the water and onto our recovery vessel, Megan.

Sandra Jones (01:38:42):

So once securely on-

Speaker 3 (01:38:45):

Welcome aboard the recovery vessel. Recovery personnel are completing final checks and standby for translation to the egress platform.

Speaker 5 (01:38:56):

Freedom copies.

Kate Tice (01:38:59):

Great news. They're letting us know that Dragon Freedom has been successfully recovered from the water's surface. If you've just joined us, we had an on-time Splashdown at 5:57 PM, Eastern Time, and we can now see that the water recovery operations are continuing to progress. The Nest where the Dragon Spacecraft is located is going to get moved forward. This will happen after one of the recovery crew members does some checks and we'll also see some hosing. Obviously the spacecraft splashed down in salt water. Salt water is corrosive and we want to try and rinse out as much of the salt water as possible to reduce that corrosion on the metallic structures. So we can see some guidance there being provided, really steering the spacecraft properly into the Dragon's Nest.

Sandra Jones (01:40:02):

And it's been 30 minutes since Dragons splashed down and as you can see there, the spacecraft is already on board the recovery vessel, Megan. Things continuing to move very smoothly today throughout the entire operations from the de-orbit burn up until this point as well.

Speaker 3 (01:40:20):

And, Freedom, it looks like the positioning wasn't quite right, so they are working on repositioning the capsule in the Nest now.

Speaker 5 (01:40:26):

Okay, copy that. Thanks.

Sandra Jones (01:40:33):

And with that, the team is just going to adjust the Dragon spacecraft a bit so that it's in the right position ahead of translating up a little bit closer ahead of the side hatch. So the team is now going to step through the procedures to ensure that that takes place.

Kate Tice (01:40:49):

While Dragon does fly itself autonomously, it clearly is unable to park itself autonomously. We want to make sure that the Dragon capsule is properly seated there in that Nest. Once Dragon is fully seated in the Nest, we'll probably see a bunch of that salt water come out from the bucket, they're located underneath the side hatch. See some saltwater splash out. As I mentioned before, one of the recovery team members will begin hosing down the exterior of the spacecraft.

Sandra Jones (01:41:55):

So you are continuing to get some great live views on your screen of Crew-9, which includes

Sandra Jones (01:42:00):

… includes NASA astronauts, Nick Hague, Suni Williams, Butch Wilmore, Roscosmos Cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov who splashed down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida, 2:57 PM Pacific Time this afternoon now working to get that spacecraft situated in the nest. Just making some final adjustments and tweaks to ensure that it's nice and secure.

Kate Tice (01:42:37):

Once the spacecraft is seated and secured and oriented correctly in the nest, Dragon will be moved into the hangar located underneath that helipad that we saw earlier from the aerial views during recovery.

Speaker 6 (01:42:56):

All right, Freedom. Looks like you are settled into the nest now. Team is working through hypergolic sweeps.

Kate Tice (01:43:10):

Call out there telling us that the recovery team is doing the second round of those hypergolic sweeps. This helps ensure that everyone, all the recovery team members that are located basically right where this camera is located towards the forward end of the recovery vessel, that they will all be safe once the spacecraft is translated forward.

(01:43:34)
So we're just doing some additional steps to make sure that the hypergolic propellant that is utilized for maneuvering the Dragon capsule while on orbit, making sure that none of those vapors are still present on the exterior of the capsule.

Sandra Jones (01:43:55):

That's right, and there are a variety of individuals on board the boat that help with recovery operations. Not only do we have the recovery personnel that you see here, but we also have a doctor that will check out the crew members as standard procedure. As with any spacecraft that is returning from space, we always perform a medical check with the crew, so you will see the crew come out of the capsule and be placed on stretchers, like with the Soyuz landing and with all of our Dragon splashdowns is the nominal procedure. We will stand by to see Dragon Freedom translate or scooch up a little bit closer to the camera angle that we're seeing right here, and then teams will step through procedures to get that side hatch open. You see it right in the dead center of your screen there. It's kind of that rectangular shape. It has not been opened since Crew 9, which include Nick Hagen and Aleksandr Gorbunov launched back in September from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, so that will be the very first time that that hatch is opened. One stock to the International Space Station crew enter through the top hatch, which was where the nose cone is now closed, that's the hatch that they actually utilize to go ahead and get inside the International Space Station. So as we get a little closer to that hatch opening procedure, you might start to see more individuals come into frame for some of that support. The ship has a maximum capacity of a little over 40 people on board and it takes a variety of different roles as we've discussed to support. Also on board is the Chief of the Astronaut Office for NASA, that's Joe Acaba.

Kate Tice (01:46:13):

Now, while we are standing by for translation of the Dragon spacecraft to the platform there, the recovery platform that we see in the foreground, it is important to note that Nick, Suni, Butch, and Aleksandr will be getting assistance from the recovery teams while exiting the spacecraft. This is the same process for any returning long-duration crew members.

(01:46:41)
As you could imagine, returning to a gravity environment can wreak havoc on our vestibular system, which is responsible for maintaining balance and motion. Of course, safety is our number one priority with this operation. So, we'll see the crew members helped out of the spacecraft one by one and they'll be assisted the few feet to the medical quarters aboard the boat.

Sandra Jones (01:47:08):

An onboard Dragon are three veteran space flyers that includes Nick Hague, the Commander, as well as Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Aleksandr Gorbunov is completing his very first space flight on this mission and he completed 171 days in space along with Nick Hague.

Kate Tice (01:47:38):

For those of you that have just recently joined us, well, I would encourage you to hit that rewind button and go back a few minutes. It was a beautiful splashdown of Dragon Freedom with the Crew 9 cohort on board. They had an on-time splashdown at 5:57 PM Eastern Time, 2:57 PM Pacific Time. We can see that the spacecraft-

Speaker 6 (01:48:03):

Freedom, translation is in progress.

Speaker 7 (01:48:09):

Copy and seal it.

Kate Tice (01:48:12):

We can see that spacecraft was successfully recovered from the ocean surface and is now being washed with fresh water as obviously they splashed down in salt water. So we're trying to rinse off as much of that salt water as possible and we can see the spacecraft continuing to move closer and closer to that recovery deck.

Speaker 6 (01:48:35):

Freedom, the crew is working on side hatch opening now. Expect hatch open in about two minutes.

Speaker 7 (01:48:44):

Okay, copy that. And Karen, just wanted to say that you guys, you and the team did an awesome job both uphill and downtown. Just really, really impressed. Thank you.

Speaker 6 (01:48:59):

Thanks, Nick. It's been an honor.

Kate Tice (01:49:03):

This is a pretty exciting moment coming up. We are working to open the side hatch. One thing that may not be obvious from just looking at the spacecraft here is that this side hatch that we're about to open, the last time it was open was when this spacecraft was at the launch pad. This side hatch is what is used for initial capsule ingress and final capsule egress, but all comings and goings from the spacecraft while it is on board the space station are from the forward hatch, which is located at the top of the spacecraft under that nose cone.

(01:49:45)
So this is a pretty exciting moment because it will be the crew's first breath of fresh air since boarding their ships at the start of their journeys last year.

Sandra Jones (01:49:56):

And the very first person that will have the opportunity to say hello to the crew once that hatch is open is a SpaceX medical recovery personnel representative. Then we'll see procedures take place to remove the foot rests of Dragon. That will just help the recovery personnel get a little bit more room to access the crew and help get them out of the spacecraft.

Kate Tice (01:50:34):

Yeah, you're absolutely right. Safety is once again top priority here and removing those foot rests from all four seats will be helpful as a SpaceX recovery team member will actually go into Dragon Freedom to help the crew members unbuckle and stand up. And essentially we'll also see a fun little slide be put in place to help the crew members exit the spacecraft safely.

(01:51:10)
So yeah, we're going to remove all four of those foot rests to basically give a little bit more working room inside the spacecraft.

Sandra Jones (01:51:20):

That's right, and we did hear the go for that hatch opening, so we're just a couple of minutes away from being able to see that and then we might be able to get the chance to see a couple of views inside of the Dragon and see the crew following their splashdown.

Kate Tice (01:51:34):

Opening that side hatch isn't quite like opening the door to your car. We have to depress the seal around the side hatch as well as we will now see them open that side hatch up.

Sandra Jones (01:52:12):

And there you have it. The side hatch is open for the first time since September.

Kate Tice (01:52:27):

We can see some of the protective equipment there that was brought into frame, that will help protect the edge of the side hatch, one, from any potential damage. Oh, we can see the recovery crew member there taking photos of the side hatch seal. This is part of the standard operation for recovery. These photos will get saved into our procedure. We'll then install that protective frame around the side hatch. This helps to ensure that the side hatch itself, the edges of it incur no damage while crew members are coming out from the spacecraft.

(01:53:18)
If you missed it, there was also a recovery team member that went inside. So there are now five people on board the Dragon spacecraft.

Sandra Jones (01:53:46):

And if you are just joining us, it has not yet even been an hour since Crew 9 splashed down off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida at 2:57 PM Pacific Time. The crew is now on board the recovery vessel, MEGAN, and the hatch is open. The next major milestone that we'll see is when the crew will actually egress or exit the spacecraft, but before that, they'll continue to… The recovery personnel rather will continue to install that protective area around the hatch and then remove the footrest. So we're a couple of minutes away from seeing the crew egress, but not too, too long away.

Kate Tice (01:54:30):

Probably see those footrests being handed out here in the near future. As I mentioned before, of course, we got to get a well-documented photo of the moment. Although we can't see it from here, I am pretty sure there are four smiles on board right now.

Sandra Jones (01:54:50):

And we did hear that report out from the commander, Nick Hague, following splashed out that there were four smiles as far as he could see.

Kate Tice (01:54:57):

Yeah, capsule full of grins. Now, generally speaking-

Sandra Jones (01:55:07):

And there we do see Crew 9, some happy waves, smiles all around back on earth.

Kate Tice (01:55:24):

Generally speaking, we have the individuals in the two center seats of the spacecraft exit first. You might hear us refer to this as the exit process as egress. It's just another term for exiting the spacecraft. Generally speaking, we, most of the time have the two center seats egress first as it makes moving around inside the capsule a little bit easier. We can see the tablets that were previously located on the upper leg of the crew members, we can see those being handed out to the recovery team. Those were taken off prior to spacecraft reentry. Those had to be stored and secured prior to dynamic operations.

Sandra Jones (01:56:34):

It looks like we are starting to see the foot rests also be removed. I just saw one there on the screen. There are four, of course, one for each crew member.

Kate Tice (01:56:56):

The foot rests are made out of carbon fiber and are actually sized appropriately for each crew member as everybody has different measurements and different leg lengths. Same goes for the arm rests and the bucket length of each seat. We size those appropriately for the crew members to ensure their comfort and safety.

(01:57:25)
I believe we just saw the little ramp that is used to help slide the crew members out from inside the spacecraft.

Sandra Jones (01:57:37):

And once the crew does exit Dragon Freedom, they will be placed to a structure to go to a medical bay for medical checkouts. This is standard procedure for all Dragon spacecraft flights that splash down crude as well as for our Soyuz spacecraft that land in Kazakhstan.

Kate Tice (01:58:09):

We could see the exterior of Dragon Freedom quite clearly in this shot and it is such a beautiful site. I personally prefer the capsule when it has some of that charring from atmospheric reentry. It is the signature sign of a capsule that has returned to Earth.

Sandra Jones (01:58:52):

Continuing to stand by for our first crew member to egress or exit for Dragon Freedom following their splashdown at 2:57 PM Pacific Time. Dragon undocked from the International Space Station at 10:05 PM Pacific just yesterday, so it was about 17 hours of phasing. And while on board the International Space Station, Crew 9 contributed to 900 hours of science, over 150 research and investigations, making great use of the Microgravity Lab of the International Space Station, which celebrates 25 years of continuous human presence this November.

Kate Tice (02:00:01):

Looks like we're about to get our first crew member here upon egress of the Dragon spacecraft.

Sandra Jones (02:00:19):

So, we are standing by for that egress. Outside of Dragon, you do see one of those stretchers. This is the expected procedure as the crew will be taken to medical facilities following their exit from Dragon.

Kate Tice (02:00:54):

We can see folks on board clapping as our first crew member…

Sandra Jones (02:01:00):

And that is NASA astronaut, Nick Hague, Commander of Crew 9, now out of crew Dragon Freedom. Some smiles, thumbs up, and a wave. Can't get any better than that.

Kate Tice (02:01:15):

Yeah, that is one happy camper, that's for sure. As we said before, it is standard procedure for all of our long-duration crew members to receive assistance upon egressing from the spacecraft. We basically help them move off of the recovery deck and into the private medical quarters for their initial consultation with the SpaceX flight surgeon. So, we'll see that take place for all four of our crew members today.

Sandra Jones (02:02:09):

And we are standing by for the next crew member to exit Freedom. Next step out of the capsule, we expect Roscosmos Cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, his first space flight, spent 171 days in space alongside NASA astronaut, Nick Hague.

Kate Tice (02:03:08):

Looks like we're getting some cheers and clapping on board as Aleksandr has slid down the little ramp and placed into the mobility aid. Once again, big smile.

Sandra Jones (02:03:41):

Now the two crew members remaining in Dragon are NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. They completed 286 days in space.

Kate Tice (02:03:55):

One of the remaining footrests being removed from the Dragon spacecraft. As I said before, we generally try to have the crew members that are located in the two center seats aboard Dragon, and we like to have them egress first if possible, as it creates a little bit more movable working room inside the spacecraft. There is a recovery crew member inside that is helping all of our Crew 9 crew egress or exit from the spacecraft.

Sandra Jones (02:04:46):

We are standing by for the next crew member to egress or exit Crew Dragon Freedom following the splashdown, not even an hour ago at 2:57 PM Pacific Time. Really have the recovery operations down pretty quick at this point.

Kate Tice (02:05:37):

Yeah, it's pretty incredible to think that just five years ago when we were doing the initial demonstration missions of the Dragon for a Crew Dragon that now we're under about 30 minutes to retrieve the spacecraft from the water and just several minutes here while it's been on board and to get everyone really to get that side hatch open.

(02:06:12)
For those of you that have just recently joined, the Dragon had an on-time splashdown. Oh, looks like we're getting our next crew member here. That is none other than Suni Williams. Big smile, big waves. She, like her other crew members, now will be assisted onto the mobility aid.

Sandra Jones (02:06:46):

There we have it. Some waves, some thumbs up, and some smiles.

Kate Tice (02:06:51):

Definitely seems to be a theme among all recovery operations.

Sandra Jones (02:06:57):

Absolutely. And, of course, that leaves NASA astronaut Butch Wilmore inside Dragon in seat four. We are getting some views of him now as he egresses or exits the spacecraft.

Kate Tice (02:07:37):

Once again, some elation and cheers there from Butch Wilmore. As we mentioned before, returning to earth, coming from a microgravity environment, can wreak havoc on the body. So, it is customary and standard procedure for all of our long-term space residents to get assistance once they are back on board the recovery vessel.

Sandra Jones (02:08:13):

Well now that Nick, Butch, Suni, and Aleksandr are safely back home on earth and getting checked out by the NASA medical team, we're going to wrap up our live coverage of their return. The Crew 9 mission began a little differently than usual since Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were already aboard the Space Station when Nick Hague and Aleksandr Gorbunov arrived on the Crew 9 spacecraft in September.

(02:08:38)
Having arrived as the crew flight test crew for Starliner, Wilmore and Williams were fully incorporated into the Space Station's Expedition 72 team and began research and other work aboard the station along with the other crew members. Williams commanded the orbiting laboratory for much of the expedition. After a successful liftoff and separation from Falcon 9, Nick and Aleksandr made a short flight on board Dragon to the International Space Station.

(02:09:06)
Veterans of long-duration Space Station missions, both Williams and Wilmore conducted spacewalks during their nine months in space. Like all crews on the station, Crew 9 had the ability to leave at any point had there been an emergency. With their full duration mission coming to an end, the crew began packing up their personal items for their return to earth about a week ago and worked through tasks and shared lessons learned with Crew 10 teams as they arrived a few days ago.

Kate Tice (02:09:34):

Their journey home began about 17 hours ago when they closed the forward hatch to Dragon and undocked from the Space Station at 10:05 PM Pacific, 1:05 AM Eastern. After four successful departure burns and a phasing burn to line up their orbit, Nick, Butch, Suni, and Aleksandr rested for a few hours before waking up to prepare for reentry this morning. We jettisoned Dragon's trunk and performed our final on-orbit maneuver, the approximately seven and a half minute long de-orbit burn. And that occurred at 2:11 PM Pacific, 5:11 PM Eastern Time, and that sent Dragon on its path home. The spacecraft reentered the Earth's atmosphere and slowed its descent with successful deployments of two drogue parachutes and four main parachutes with the final splashdown occurring off the coast of Tallahassee, Florida at 2:57 PM Pacific, 5:57 PM Eastern.

(02:10:35)
Following that successful splashdown, we saw SpaceX recovery experts move in and prepare Dragon Freedom for its lift onto the recovery vessel. And just a little less than an hour following splashdown, we saw Nick, Suni, Butch, and Aleksandr make their way out of Dragon and into the recovery ship's medical facilities safe and sound.

Sandra Jones (02:10:56):

Next up, they'll catch a helicopter flight back to shore where they'll transfer to aircraft that will take them home. The astronauts will take a NASA plane for the short flight back to Houston where they'll be reunited with family and friends to bring an end to this mission. It's been an honor and a privilege to share their journey with all of you as we continue this new era in human spaceflight.

Kate Tice (02:11:18):

Return today marks the end of the direct handover we executed after successfully launching the Crew 10 mission to the Space Station just last week on Friday, March 14th. Thank you as always for joining us for tonight's coverage of the Splashdown of Crew 9.

(02:11:35)
Remember to follow SpaceX on X and NASA online and on social media for the very latest on crew and cargo flights to and from the International Space Station.

Sandra Jones (02:11:47):

And we'll continue to share the progress of Nick, Suni, Butch, and Aleksandr on social media as they travel back home. We do also have a post-splashdown media briefing rather, coming up at approximately 4:30 PM Pacific, 7:30 PM Eastern, where leadership will share a final update as we conclude this successful mission. So from all of us at NASA and SpaceX, welcome home, Crew 9. So long.

Speaker 8 (02:12:12):

(silence)

(02:12:12)
(music)

(02:12:12)
Mission sequence five. Six, five, four…

Speaker 9 (02:12:12):

I am CO for a lift-off. The clock has started.

Speaker 8 (02:12:12):

Lift-off. We have a lift-off. 32 minutes past the hour. Lift-off on Apollo 11.

Speaker 9 (02:12:12):

Roger, CROG. I feel fine.

Speaker 10 (02:12:12):

Godspeed, John Glenn.

Speaker 9 (02:12:12):

Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.

Speaker 10 (02:49:37):

Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground.

Speaker 11 (02:49:37):

New possibilities are opening up for signs of cooperation between countries.

Speaker 8 (02:49:46):

… two, one, zero.

Speaker 12 (02:49:46):

Zero [inaudible 02:49:47].

Speaker 8 (02:49:47):

Lift-off. Lift-off. America's return to space as Discovery clears the tower.

Speaker 13 (02:49:47):

Discovery, go at throttle up.

Speaker 14 (02:49:47):

Discovery, [inaudible 02:49:48].

Eileen Marie Collins (02:49:47):

Thanks to everybody in the shuttle program, the crew is [inaudible 02:49:48].

Speaker 14 (02:49:47):

[inaudible 02:49:48].

Speaker 15 (02:49:50):

We have followed in their footsteps to get us where we are today.

Courtney Beasley (02:49:51):

Good evening and welcome to NASA's Johnson Space Center for our Crew 9 post-splashdown news conference. We are joined in studio today by Joel Montalbano, deputy associate

Courtney Beasley (02:50:00):

… administrator for NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate; Steve Stich, manager for NASA's Commercial Crew Program; Bill Spetch, operations integration manager for NASA's International Space Station program; and joining us virtually, Sarah Walker, SpaceX director for Dragon Mission Management. We'll be taking some questions from here in the room today and on our phone bridge today. So, if you're in the room, be sure to get our attention to ask your question. And if you're on the phone bridge, be sure to press star one to enter the queue. Before we get started though, we'll start with some opening remarks from our panel here, and Joel, we'll start with you.

Joel Montalbano (02:50:37):

All right, thank you, and thank you everyone for being here, and for those of you tying in remotely, thank you for showing an interest in our great space program. It is awesome they have Crew-9 home, just a beautiful landing. I think many of you heard that back in January, the president asked SpaceX what it would take to bring this crew home? And I will tell you that at the time that that question was asked, we were already looking at options of what to do with the Crew-10, Crew-9 situation and how we're going to set that up.

(02:51:10)
I'll tell you a little bit. When you plan these dynamic activities, a lot of work goes into them. For example, for the landing that you guys just witnessed today, there's a number of things that we look at, a number of factors, weather being one of them. You saw great weather today. In addition, we look at the readiness of the recovery team to make sure they're ready to go. We look at the handover time on orbit between the incoming crew and the departing crew to make sure there's enough time for activities to be accomplished before the departing crew leaves. We do have the benefit of having NASA astronaut Don Pettit remaining on board. He'll be coming home on Soyuz in April, and so he'll continue the handover with the crew. We also look at the vehicle traffic, the vehicles coming and going.

(02:51:57)
And when you pull all that together, the International Space Station program, the Commercial Crew Program, and SpaceX came up with the plan that we just witnessed, the Crew-10 launch last week, the docking over the weekend, the undock early today, and then the landing that we just witnessed. So, just an incredible amount of inputs that you get to pull all that together in order to have a successful operation.

(02:52:20)
I want to tell you, I want to thank the Crew-9 team and the ground teams for their dedication to excellence, their resilience, their flexibility during this expedition, everything they did to have a successful expedition, as you have all witnessed. SpaceX has been an incredible partner for us, and it shows the benefits of the commercial-public-private partnership that we have. So, they've just been a huge, great partner throughout all this.

(02:52:50)
Crew-9, in addition to the spacewalks that many of you witnessed, they performed just about 150 experiments onboard the International Space Station, with over 900 hours of research, and the work we do on the International Space Station benefits the nation, benefits people on Earth, and are the building blocks for going back to the Moon and to Mars. So, Nick, Aleksandr, Butch, and Sunny, welcome home. On behalf of NASA, I want to thank the administration, I want to thank all the work of the NASA teams and all the work of the SpaceX teams. And so with that, I'll hand it over to Commercial Crew Program Manager Steve Stich.

Steve Stich (02:53:32):

Thanks Joel, and thank you all for being here. Greatly appreciate your interest in the Commercial Crew Program and also human spaceflight. Of course, as you know, it's been just a huge week for Commercial Crew. The missions, I think, sometimes seem easier than they are. If I just step back and think about all the challenges we had to launch Crew-9, moving to a different launch pad, adjusting the seats, and the crew training, and then over the weekend, once we docked Crew-10 safely, looking at the weather patterns, finding this great opportunity that we landed at today, adjusting the timeline, it's never easy. Spaceflight's always dynamic. Sometimes it seems like things move from step to step to step, but there's usually different paths along the way.

(02:54:23)
So, the weekend was culminated today with the landing of Crew-9. Dragon splashed down at about 5:57 PM off the coast of Tallahassee. That's our first Commercial Crew Program landing at Tallahassee, we've had a couple cargo flights land there. And now it's great to have Crew-9 and the Freedom capsule back home, and its fourth flight is now in the history books. And of course we're overjoyed. I watched every crew member come out of the vehicle today post-landing. It was great to watch Nick, Sunny, Butch, and Aleksandr come out of Dragon, and smile and wave as they came out of the vehicle. They're on the ship now, we'll get them back to meet the NASA aircraft and then back to meet with their families.

(02:55:07)
If you watched the weather today, it was incredible. Clear skies, real low winds, maybe three or four knots of wind, and really calm seas. You could see the dolphins swimming around the capsule, which was kind of incredible. SpaceX had a nice drone aircraft flying around and taking footage, and that was just incredible.

(02:55:29)
As I said, the ops team just did a phenomenal job over the weekend, pulling in the landing to get the crew home sooner and take advantage of this great weather opportunity. Really appreciate the versatility of SpaceX, the ISS program, Commercial Crew Program, and the Flight Ops team in planning out the timeline, looking at the crew's workload, determining whether we could pull this off, doing sleep shifting, all those sorts of things that made this opportunity happen. I also want to thank our partners at the US Coast Guard, they were there on scene protecting the scene and making sure that it was safe for mariners in the area. The FAA, the Department of Defense continuing to support us. It's great to see the teams really in action.

(02:56:16)
Overall, I would say it was a really clean undocking, reentry, and landing. The Dragon vehicle performed extremely well, didn't really have any issues to work, little things, a GPS outage that we reset a filter on and things like that. Today the sequence went perfectly: jettisoned the trunk, executed the deorbit burn, closed the nose cone, and did the entry. You could hear Nick call down when we finally got the vehicle back through the blackout, 4.6 Gs, and you could tell they were doing well, and then braced for the parachute, deploy of the drogues, and then the mains and then having splashdown. So, parachutes performed well. The whole system worked just as planned.

(02:56:58)
The crew's doing great. They'll spend a little time on the recovery ship getting checked out, making sure that they're healthy and ready to go, and then eventually they'll make their way back to Houston. Again, I want to congratulate the entire NASA Commercial Crew Program, the SpaceX team. In many ways, if I step back to last year, this has been nine months in the making, and I couldn't be prouder of our team's versatility, our team's ability to adapt and really build for the future of human spaceflight, and looking at different ways to do business, taking advantage of one vehicle to launch a crew and then bring back the crew in a different vehicle. Our partner, SpaceX, did a tremendous job. Every time we asked them to do something a little different, they stepped up and to the plate and did that, including swapping capsules six weeks ago, prior to Crew-10, and then also adjusting the Crew-9 mission.

(02:57:49)
We'll celebrate for a while. We're going to take some time in Commercial Crew to celebrate this one and spend a lot of time with the crew, and then we'll move on to Crew-11. Crew-11 will be here before we know it. We'll launch that vehicle as early as mid-July, so we'll start preparing for that. And then working hand-in-hand with Boeing as well on certification of Starliner, getting that vehicle back to flight. Butch and Sunny's return on Dragon, to me, shows how important it is to have two different crew transportation systems, the importance of Starliner and the redundancy that we're building in human spaceflight for our low Earth orbit economy.

(02:58:26)
We're super grateful for Boeing as well and their investment. They're keenly interested in the landing today, they have a watch party going on and are watching Butch and Sunny come back, and they've texted me the build-up to this, they're very keenly interested in Butch and Sunny, and then we're interested in their resilience. That whole Boeing team, like our whole Commercial Crew Program team, is resilient and moving forward to the next steps on Starliner.

(02:58:52)
It's been a busy start to 2025. It's hard to believe we're in the middle or toward late March. Looking for an exciting summer as well, and I look forward to your questions, and I'll hand it over to Bill.

Bill Spetch (02:59:05):

All right, thanks, Steve. Yeah, welcome, and thanks for everybody's interest as we continue on. Return today marks the successful completion of the Crew-9 mission, and really with them handing over operations on board to Crew-10. Just some interesting stats as we go through. Nick and Aleksandr both spent 171 days in space on this trip, seeing the arrival and departure of four different visiting vehicles to the ISS. Butch and Sunny spent 286 days in space, and they got to see eight different visiting vehicles coming and going from the ISS. We stay really busy, as we talk about all these vehicles coming and going from the station. Nick and Butch each conducted one spacewalk, and Sunny conducted two. That actually gave Sunny the record for most time on spacewalks by a woman, and puts her fourth overall in terms of time outside doing spacewalks.

(03:00:04)
The crew contributed to more than 150 unique experiments, like Joel said, including stem cell technology to potentially address blood diseases, autoimmune disorders, and cancers. They tested lighting systems to help maintain circadian rhythms, which will help improve conditions for not only future crews as you go through spaceflight, but also those on the ground, for shift workers and those in extreme or remote environments. They did plant growth and quality experiments to support future Moon and Mars missions, as we look forward with that. They loaded a really interesting experiment: JAXA had their first wooden satellite, they loaded that into and got that deployed from the ISS. And then as part of their spacewalk, Butch and Sunny collected samples from the station's exterior to study the survivability of microorganisms in the vacuum of space.

(03:00:58)
I'll tell you, the Crew-9 crew did a great job here in the near-term supporting this shortened handover period with Crew-10, enabling that landing opportunity that we saw today. There was a lot of work that they did ahead of Crew-10 arrival to get prepared, and then really working through all of the things that we need to do to hand over the emergency procedures to the crew, to get the cargo transferred that they need to, and to get all the vehicles set up for Crew-10 to be very successful. Crew-10 is already working hard, and they're working on key science investigations on board. They already kicked them off even while they were getting prepped for undocking the other day.

(03:01:36)
So, coming up on ISS, we still have a lot going on. We have NG-21 release at the end of March, providing some important trash disposal for the space station. You got to get rid of all the stuff that you bring up, so you got to bring that down somehow, and NG-21's going to take away a lot of that. And then we'll look forward to Soyuz MS-27 launch Tuesday, April 8th from Baikonur Cosmodrome at about 12: 47 AM Central. That'll be carrying NASA astronaut Jonny Kim and cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky. And then before Soyuz MS-26 returns, Aleksey Ovchinin will pass on the role of ISS commander to our JAXA astronaut Takuya Onishi. Really a lot of great stuff continuing on station.

(03:02:22)
I really appreciate the entirety of the team, joint with SpaceX, NASA, our operations teams, the program teams, the engineering teams, all the work it takes to turn around these missions. It's a ton of stuff, and then we go change it on them at the last minute, and they handle it like the pros that they are. So, welcome home to Crew-9, and with that, I'll hand it over to Sarah.

Sarah Walker (03:02:48):

All right, thanks, Bill. It's a good day to be here at SpaceX, and it's a good day down in Florida as we welcome Crew-9 home from their stay at the International Space Station. We're happy to have safely returned Nick, Alex, Sunny, and Butch back to Earth and to their families after their time at the orbiting laboratory. Human spaceflight is dynamic and exciting, and this crew knows that as well as any other. So, back in September, Steve was talking about this a bit, Crew-9 became the first human spaceflight mission to launch from pad 40 using our new Dragon tower that we completed construction on last year. And it was our first mission in a while to fly a crew of two, since Bob and Doug's historic flight in 2020.

(03:03:29)
So then just three days ago, we launched Crew-10 to take over and continue the work of Crew-9 on ISS. And I forgot to mention this Friday night, but Crew-10 was our 50th Dragon mission since first launching COTS 1 in December of 2010. That's a huge milestone for the team. COTS, if you don't remember, stands for Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, and COTS 1 was the first demonstration mission under that original partnership with NASA to resupply the space station with cargo flights. It was also the mission that inspired me to join the SpaceX team, which I'm so grateful I was given the opportunity to do a few months later. So, the rest is history. We've been bringing cargo and more recently crews to the orbiting lab for well over a decade since.

(03:04:10)
And as we talked about a few days ago, after Crew-10 launch, NASA and SpaceX adapted as this mission evolved, and appreciate all the kind words said already during this press conference. As we adapted together, we kept safety at the forefront, and thanks to the teamwork across the two agencies, a change in the Dragon spacecraft for Crew-10 and then a shortened handover helped accelerate the Crew-10 launch and the Crew-9 return. Then, over the weekend, we decided as a joint team to undock a day earlier than originally planned to take advantage of some great weather we were seeing off the coast of Tallahassee for splashdown. So, I know this required quite a bit of creativity from the NASA team and the onboard crew to compress the handover even further than they already had. And I'm thankful for everyone's hard work and flexibility to safely bring Dragon and the crew home today.

(03:04:59)
I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that today's return was also our final Dragon recovery on the East Coast. So, after six years of successful recovery operations off the coast of Florida, we'll now be moving all Dragon recovery operations back to the West Coast. I just hope the California coast can bring as many dolphins as we saw during today's operation. That was really fun to see.

(03:05:20)
We had a nominal return today. Dragon is healthy and the parachute performed as expected. The crew is likely on the recovery vessel now, soon to transit to the SpaceX-NASA handover location, while the SpaceX vessel transports Dragon back to our refurbishment facility at Cape Canaveral in Florida. It's amazing to think that SpaceX has now safely flown 62 crew members from 14 countries to space, 52 of those to and from the International Space Station. Dragon has supported 46 missions to the station in all, and 29 of those on reflown Dragons. I think that's enough flights that we can be really proud of what the team has built together and what we've accomplished, but always with the humility and awareness that we will continue to learn every single mission.

(03:06:04)
The stakes of getting this right are and always will be high, and as Bill Gerstenmaier often says, we must always stay hungry and vigilant to scour the data before, during, and after every operation we perform. It's always an honor for all of us here at SpaceX to launch human spaceflight missions and safely return astronauts and cosmonauts as we continue to advance human spaceflight. Thanks for having me on the briefing today, and look forward to your questions.

Courtney Beasley (03:06:29):

All right, thank you all for your opening remarks. We will go ahead and start taking some questions in the room, so please raise your hand. Gina, go ahead.

Gina (03:06:39):

I think this is for Steve Stich. Crew-9's home, but the research hasn't stopped, because what you need to know about what happened with Butch and Sunny on orbit, that's still an ongoing medical research project. Would you expand on that for me? What will you learn about their nine months on the space station?

Steve Stich (03:07:00):

Yeah, I think I can comment and then see if Bill has anything to add, but every single crew member that we fly in orbit, we collect medical research data, we do various blood draws at various times during the flight, especially toward the end, do bone density measurements in space, we look at their vision and how their vision might change over time, their intracranial pressure. We do all kinds of things. So, you're right, every single astronaut when they come back, including Nick and Aleksandr, has participated in all kinds of experiments, and we're learning from all those. And I'll see if Bill has anything to add.

Bill Spetch (03:07:33):

I think you covered the vast majority of it. We look at everybody when they come home, and every duration adds to that database of knowledge of the effects of spaceflight on the human body. And so we continue to look at that across all of our crew members.

Courtney Beasley (03:07:47):

Okay, we'll take another question here in the room. Mark, go ahead.

Mark Strassmann (03:07:50):

Mark Strassmann, CBS News. Steve, I want to pick up on something you said, which is the keen interest in Butch and Sunny. All five major television networks cut in with live special reports following the splashdown because Butch and Sunny have arguably become America's most famous astronauts over the course of their nine-month saga. So, now that they're home, now that the saga is over, what, to you, is the takeaway?

Steve Stich (03:08:16):

Yeah, I think that that's a great question, and I haven't probably had a lot of time to reflect. We're certainly looking at Starliner very carefully. We're in the process of looking at that vehicle, looking at the helium system. We've got some candidate seals that we're going to replace. We'll get into some testing here over the summer timeframe with what we call an integrated doghouse at White Sands. So, we're looking at that.

(03:08:41)
The thing I think back of this whole timeframe is how really resilient Butch and Sunny were the whole time. They launched on what was going to be a short test flight with a crewed flight test vehicle with Boeing, and then they moved very quickly into station increment operations and they became seamlessly part of the International Space Station. And they did that because they're experienced astronauts and we had prepared, right? We had flown gloves for them to do spacewalks and we had flown a lot of components for them. So, I think that shows the adaptability of crew members.

(03:09:15)
And if I think forward to exploration and maybe some harsh missions to the Martian surface someday or back to the Moon, the adaptability of crew members, changing the timeline for their return… Certainly a huge thank you to their families. When you think about Butch and Sunny, they enjoyed their time on station, they got to do spacewalks, and they got to do lots of cool science and things like that. Their families are the ones that really, kudos to them for being resilient in a planned short duration flight now turning into a long duration. And I think back of when they went into quarantine, they went into quarantine in the April timeframe for the early May launch that we had for crewed flight tests. So, the families, a huge thank you to them. I'm sure that reunion is going to be wonderful with the families. And we'll keep learning as we go and keep being adaptable in the future.

Joel Montalbano (03:10:09):

Just add, if it's okay, it shows the flexibility of our commercial providers. The fact that they flew up on the Boeing vehicle and home on SpaceX, this is a lesson learned for NASA too, such that when we do have Boeing and SpaceX both flying on a regular basis, we need to be able to do the opposite too. If we come up on a SpaceX vehicle and have a problem, to be bringing people home on a Boeing vehicle. It shows you, this year, I think many of you know, we celebrate 25 years of crew on the International Space Station, and just shows the flexibility we have with the space station and our commercial partners.

Courtney Beasley (03:10:46):

We'll take our next question here in the room. Go ahead.

Ed Lavandera (03:10:48):

Ed Lavandera with CNN. Two questions. Do you have specifics on the timeline of when the astronauts will be landing back here in Houston and reuniting with their family over the next, I presume, in the next few hours? And then secondly, the more delicate question is, of all the talk that we've seen over the last months that these astronauts have been, quote, "stranded" in space, how did that kind of talk affect you guys over the last few months in formulating a plan to get them back home?

Steve Stich (03:11:17):

Yeah, I don't have the specifics of the timeline. I know they're going to fly back here tonight. They'll probably spend some time rehabilitating a little bit and the docs watching them, and then they'll rejoin their families in the next day or so. Relative to the mission planning, I think what we did was we tried to look for opportunities to bring the crew back when it was safe to do so. And we always had a lifeboat, a way for them to come home, all the way back to Starliner. If you remember during the Starliner crewed flight test mission, we said if there were an emergency during part of that mission, we considered the thrusters, the service module thrusters, good enough to bring the crew back then. We then transitioned to the Crew-8 vehicle for a temporary timeframe until Crew-9 arrived. So, we always had a way to get the crew home safely, should we need to.

(03:12:06)
And then it really became when is the right time, when is the right time to bring them back? And then when we had to swap over Dragon capsules from the new vehicle, which wasn't quite ready, we moved to capsule 210. We figured this March timeframe was the timeframe to execute this direct handover that we just did. So, for me, it's been the normal kind of planning I do all the time, looking at all the options, working with SpaceX, working with the space station program, and finding the right time to bring the crew back.

Courtney Beasley (03:12:36):

Okay, we'll take another question here in the room.

Amanda Henderson (03:12:38):

Hi guys, my name's Amanda Henderson, I'm with KHOU 11, the CBS affiliate here in Houston. 10 days turning into nine months, but turning also into hundreds of hours of invaluable research that they got up there at the ISS and also moonwalk hours. Can you talk a little bit about how when you realized that they were going to be up there for longer than the intended timeframe, they were able to transition into getting that invaluable research started?

Bill Spetch (03:13:08):

Yeah, I can start with that one, and I can let these guys add in. So, even before they launched, because we knew they were flying on a test mission, we provided all the training for the stay on ISS that they would need to be a long duration crew member. We flew the equipment. Every crew has unique equipment that they need to do a spacewalk, and we made sure we had that up there. So, I think it really comes to the preparation that we did even before they flew that allows them to be so successful when they get up there.

(03:13:35)
And that's really what we do with all of the crews that fly to the ISS. There's the rigorous training program that they go through, they're prepared for things, they have a lot of skills-based training that goes on so that they know how to do the basics of everything, and then we have an outstanding team on the ground working with them. They get to work directly with the scientists in a lot of cases on experiments that help walk them through what they're doing, video downlinks. We have a lot of different ways to help them through, and it really just enables everything that they then do on board in an effective manner. But it all starts with that preparation that we did ahead of time, knowing that we have a test mission coming.

Steve Stich (03:14:15):

I do think the difference… The shuttle missions had a finite duration. The way the space shuttle worked, it had fuel cells and they used liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen to power those fuel cells. And so at some point, that vehicle had to return. But the beauty of the space station is wonderful laboratory, wonderful place for the astronauts to live and work. And you can almost stop the clock if you have a problem. And I think that's something that we learned on this flight that's a little bit different, is…

(03:14:44)
So when, with Starliner, we had planned for maybe a short 10 to two week mission for a test flight, when we needed more time, we took that time to understand the vehicle, and then when we determined that the better option would be to bring Butch and Sunny back on Dragon, we pivoted over to that plan. So, I think station gives us that flexibility that we never had before. And we also have flexibility now as, Joel said, with two different vehicles. So, someday there may be a case where we're using Starliner to handle a Dragon contingency problem of some sort. So, we have a luxury that maybe we didn't have in the past, and so we're adapting and learning from that.

Courtney Beasley (03:15:22):

All right, we'll head over to our phone bridge to Marcia Dunn with the Associated Press.

Marcia Dunn (03:15:28):

Hi, yes, good evening. Probably for you, Steve, I understand the crew is being flown to Houston tonight, and that they'll be staying at JSC in crew quarters. When will they be able to go home if they're feeling good? How much time off do they get before they have to go back to work? Are you giving them some extra bonus vacation? And when do you have to decide whether Starliner's going to be carrying Crew-12 up? What's the deadline for deciding on that mission, whether it'll be Starliner or Dragon? Thanks.

Steve Stich (03:16:00):

Yeah, there's a lot of questions there. I hope I get all of them. Let's see, the first question was when do they go back to their families? It's usually within a day or two, once they're cleared medically, that we make sure, as they readapt to gravity here on Earth, it's usually a day or two, they'll go back to their families. And then they'll get some time off and then we'll have… Fortunately with Butch and Sunny, we've done a lot of debriefs already with them, and so we've gotten feedback on Starliner and feedback on many things for the crewed flight test already from them while they were on orbit. They'll have a standard set of debriefs with the Crew-9 crew, because they really have been part of Crew-9 ever since Crew-9 docked. So, they'll go through a series of debriefs, but they will get some well-deserved time off, well-deserved time with their families. It's been a long time for them, and look forward to hearing their stories about meeting with their family.

(03:16:58)
I think the last question, Marcia, was when do we have to decide Crew-12 versus the next step with Starliner? And we probably have a little bit more time, as we get into the summer and understand the testing we're going to go do, to make that decision, whether it be Crew-12 as the next flight or Starliner. We're also looking at some options for Starliner, should we need to, of flying it uncrewed. The vehicle has the capability to fly uncrewed if we need to. And so we'll kind of weigh all those things as we get the testing and analysis behind us. Boeing's done a good job of developing a new thermal model, which we're using to try to understand the changes we're going to make in those doghouses. We'll add some tape and thermal barriers in different places. So, we have a little time to make that decision.

Courtney Beasley (03:17:42):

Okay. Our next question is from Chris Davenport with The Washington Post.

Chris Davenport (03:17:48):

Hey everyone, thanks for taking my question, and congrats on a successful end to the mission. For Steve Stich, you had mentioned your discussions with Boeing, and I'm just wondering, has Boeing given you a 100% commitment that they're sticking with the program, just given the enormous costs they've had to eat? And is NASA doing anything to incentivize them to stay? You just mentioned an uncrewed flight, for example. Thanks.

Steve Stich (03:18:17):

Yeah, Boeing, all the way up to their new CEO Kelly, has been committed to Starliner. I can see that in the way they're approaching their solution to the problems. They're taking the time to understand the leaks we had in the helium system and testing some new seals that we may field in those flanges. The same thing with the test plans, they're multifaceted for the thrusters. Some testing of the Teflon material, integrated testing at White Sands. So, I see them being very committed. They want to provide a transportation system with crew capability to fulfill their missions. And then they're even, I think, stepping beyond that and thinking about low Earth orbit and com-LEO destinations with their vehicles. So, I see a commitment from Boeing to continue the program. They realize that they have an important vehicle, and we were very close to having a capability that we would like to field. I think we have some changes we need to make to the way we heat those thrusters, the way we fire those thrusters, and then we can test that on the next flight.

Courtney Beasley (03:19:28):

Our next question is from Ken Chang with The New York Times.

Ken Chang (03:19:33):

Hi, thank you. This for Joel, Steve, and Sarah. The White House put out a statement that said the landing today represented President Trump keeping his promise "to rescue the astronauts stranded in space". And from what you've just said during this news conference, I think it's been in the works for months, and a lot of work for everyone. I was just wondering, could you explicitly answer the question, if Kamala Harris were president, or if Joe Biden had run for reelection and won, would anything have changed with this mission? Thank you.

Joel Montalbano (03:20:15):

So NASA, as an agency, we work for the president, and who's ever there, we work for them. We had an input from that office, we took a look at it, and our job is to take all the inputs we get, and operate as successful and safely as we can. And that's what we did for this administration, and that's what we would do for any administration.

Courtney Beasley (03:20:40):

Our next question is from Sana with Bloomberg News.

Sana Pashankar (03:20:48):

Hi, thank you so much for taking my question. I had another question regarding Boeing. I know you just mentioned that you're looking at options for an uncrewed mission. So, I guess we're wondering who would pay for the uncrewed mission, and would Boeing be required to redo the crewed test flight as well? Thanks.

Steve Stich (03:21:11):

Yeah, what we're looking at right now is we really want what I would call as a crewed-capable vehicle. So, even if we were to fly the vehicle without a crew in the return back to the next steps with the Starliner, we want that to be crew-capable. So, we want it to have all the systems in place that we could fly a crew with. In fact, as I think about it, it might be there for a contingency situation as we prepare for whatever events could happen. One of the things that I've learned in my time at NASA is always be prepared for the unexpected, always have options. And so that's what we're thinking about.

(03:21:50)
So, we'll take those steps forward, we'll look at the test data, we'll make a decision whether to fly it crewed or uncrewed. And then we are trying to do it under what we call this post-certification phase of the contract. And Boeing has delivered a lot of the certification data already. They have a little bit more to go, relative to the prop system. I think we talked about they're flying a new space suit eventually and a few other things like that. So, we're looking at doing it under that phase of the contract, and NASA meeting its commitments on those flights.

Courtney Beasley (03:22:25):

Our next question is from Will Robinson-Smith with Spaceflight Now.

Will Robinson-Smith (03:22:31):

Hi, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us today, and congrats on the splashdown of Crew-9. Maybe just following up on Ken's question to Joel and Stich and Sarah, obviously, as you've discussed tonight and over the last several months, the plan has been established for some time on how to bring Butch and Sunny back to Earth. But barring them returning on the seats that were added on the Crew-8 Dragon spacecraft, had the decision been made to try to bring them back any earlier, was there a Dragon spacecraft that would've been available to operate that mission prior to the Dragon that we just saw support the launch of Crew-10? Thanks.

Steve Stich (03:23:23):

Yeah, the earliest Dragon that we had to go fly the mission really was this capsule, 210. And so when we were planning originally on Crew-10 to have the newer spacecraft, we thought it would be ready. And initially, we were going to launch in mid-February. We moved it to March 25th. And then I think Sarah talked briefly before about some of the challenges we had, or maybe it was Mr. Gerstenmaier, with a battery system that was a bad component we had to pull off. We had to pull the heat shield off and vector out of some

Steve Stich (03:24:00):

… work on the vehicle. We had some challenges with some valves in the prop system and this, to me, is just evidence of how complicated… I don't think we always do a super good job of explaining how complicated… The spacecraft itself is made up of millions of components that have to work in an integrated fashion and you go through testing and qualification to get there. And so those components didn't work, and when we looked at that, we just pivoted over to the vehicle that was going to be ready the soonest, which was capsule 210, and that led us to the March 12th date and then eventually the March 15th launch.

Speaker 16 (03:24:33):

All right, next.

Sarah Walker (03:24:34):

Yeah, and maybe I would just add that with five crew Dragon spacecraft in the fleet, certainly many paths are possible, right? With the allocations as we had them with our current slate of missions in the next 12 to 18 months, exactly as Steve said, it was the new spacecraft that was anticipated to be ready first with the one we ended up flying shortly on the heels and then when we ran into a processing issue on that new vehicle, the other one could be ready sooner. And so those were the two that were coming available. But certainly we can pivot and adapt. Flexibility is the name of the game, right? And so if we change what lanes or what stage of the flow any given spacecraft is in, we can open up other options available. But we had these vehicles allocated to specific missions, and these were the two spacecraft that met the need that we had here in the spring to fly these missions in the timeframes that they were requested.

Speaker 16 (03:25:35):

All right. Our next question is from Joey Roulette.

Joey Roulette (03:25:40):

Hey, thanks. Just two questions. One quick one for Steve. I just want to be clear. So it sounds like the testing results that you guys are going to have with Starliner this summer and maybe later on is going to determine whether its next mission is uncrewed or crewed and whatever that next crewed mission is, is that going to be a routine certification crewed mission or might there be another CFT? And then the second question is for Bill Specht. I was just wondering if there's any studies that Butch and Suni are involved in that investigates the behavioral or psychological response to not just long duration space flight, but unexpected changes to a mission in the middle of it? Thanks.

Steve Stich (03:26:27):

Yeah. When we look back at the crewed flight tests, we got a lot of good data out of that flight relative to having a crew on board. So really the thing that we need to solidify and go test is the prop system and the service module. We need to make sure we can eliminate the helium leaks, eliminate the service module thruster issues that we had on docking, and then the rest of the vehicle performed really well. So when we look forward, what we'd like to do is one flight and then get into a crew rotation flight. So the next flight up would really test all the changes we're making to the vehicle and then the next fight beyond that, we really need to get Boeing into a crewed rotation. So that's kind of the strategy.

Bill Spetch (03:27:09):

Yeah, and then to your second question, all of our crew members go through evaluations, they fill out surveys, they do medical evals, so all of these things happen on every crew member. So we do get some unique data from Butch and Suni based on their stay, but it's something that we do with every crew member that flies. There's always changes that happen on board. There's always adjustments that we have to make that all of the crew members adapt to. As you've watched with our flight schedule over the years, it's very rare that we actually get a flight to fly exactly where we planned it two years out when they were thinking it was going to be. So it's okay that we have these changes and they adapt really well, but everybody gets looked at in terms of those effects and understanding just the effects of spaceflight on them.

Speaker 16 (03:28:00):

Okay. Our next question is from Maria with KBIR, Knoxville.

Maria (03:28:05):

Hi, yes. Thank you so much for your time. If someone can walk me through the physical and mental adjustments that the astronauts are going to be experiencing?

Steve Stich (03:28:18):

I can try and see if Bill and Joel have anything to add. You know, when they get back, the body is amazingly adaptable. The one thing that the body will struggle a bit with is the inner ear and the vestibular response. In microgravity, when you transition from 1G here that we're sitting in this room to then in space, the inner ear can get a little disturbed because gravity's not pulling the fluid down and the little hairs inside the inner ear, and so the crew can take a little while to adapt to microgravity. That same thing happens in reverse. When you land back on earth. The human body was adaptable and was used to being in microgravity. Now the vestibular response is such that you feel disoriented. You may feel a little dizzy, you may have trouble getting up.

(03:29:14)
And then of course, physically their body, when they were operating in space and doing operations inside the various modules, their muscles weren't working as hard, their heart wasn't working as hard. And so there's a muscular and cardiovascular kind of reconditioning that has to happen. And so that's what's happening now. And then there's a little bit of a response back, coming back to 1G in space. I can release this pin and it's going to stay right where it is. And in 1G, if I release the pin, it falls. And so there's a little bit of that that the crew has to get back and learn the skills back here on earth again.

Speaker 16 (03:29:57):

Okay. Our next question is from Jacqui with The Times of London.

Jacqui (03:30:03):

Hello and thank you. I'm sorry if this is a really frustrating question because I know there's so much good work done on this mission, but there has been a fictitious narrative woven around it by prominent people who are hard to ignore. Why has NASA not pushed back more emphatically against that and against the use of astronauts by one of its commercial contractors as political pawns? And what's to be lost by simply correcting that narrative for the sake of the public who have paid for the mission? Thank you.

Joel Montalbano (03:30:38):

You know, I would say, you know, our job at NASA is to successfully and safely fly these missions. We fly it with the laws of physics and we fly it with our commercial partners. And so oftentimes there may be things out in the press that may not be exactly what's happening, and our job is to fly these missions. And regardless of what you read in the press, our job is to fly successful missions, safe missions and do the science we do on board the International Space Station. I mentioned this year, 25 years of continuous crew presence on board, later this year, the International Space Station. And we do about 150 experiments every expedition we fly. So think about it. Every six months, I think we're over 3000 experiments since we started the International Space Station, and that's what we focus on.

Speaker 16 (03:31:42):

Okay. Our next question is from Jeff Foust with Space News.

Jeff Foust (03:31:47):

Good evening. Question for Bill or Steve, since the Crew-9, Crew-10 handover lasted only a couple of days, was there anything you would normally do on a handover you weren't able to do in this case and in the future might you consider shorter handovers between future commercial crew missions? Thanks.

Bill Spetch (03:32:06):

Yeah. Across the board, the main thing that we have to get done is like anytime you get to a new place is the emergency briefings. "Where do I go in case of an emergency?" "What are my duties in terms of an emergency?" And that happens very early on. And then the follow-ons are more of the general, "Hey, where did you guys put this thing," or, "Where did you put that?" "Where did you leave this wrench when you get up there?," because you can imagine the size of the space station is so large and there's a lot of stuff up there. So a lot of the handover that we do with the crews is more set up to be an efficiency gain, and that really helps them be more effective when they go and get the tasks done that we need to. So when we reduce that time, we reduce that efficiency in the near term to accomplish the tasks on board. We evaluate that each time and understand what our handover is.

(03:33:02)
In general, we don't look to reduce that because we want to be as efficient as possible. We want to get everything done in the most efficient manner, get the most things done on Space Station that we can. But in this case, it was actually to our advantage to go work that shorter handover and then get them home quicker, hitting this weather day that we had here today, and not leave it up to how the weather was going to behave days and days from now. So the critical stuff always gets done, that emergency handover, that, "How do we go handle contingencies onboard?" They're trained on the ground for all of these things, and we have a lot of support for the teams on the ground to help them as they go, so we can shorten it if we want to.

(03:33:47)
But it's not quite the same as getting up there and finding out from the person that's been up there for six months, "Hey, I found that this was the best spot to put this," or, "I left this here, and so when you need it, go look over there to go do this," or, "This is the best way to go pull out this drawer or whatever you have to do for your experiments on board." So nothing beats that face-to-face handover and the time they get up there, but we have the options to shorten it when it makes the most sense.

Speaker 16 (03:34:21):

Okay. Our next question is from Sawyer with nasaspaceflight.com.

Sawyer (03:34:27):

Thank you so much. This question is, I believe for Sarah. With this being the final splashdown on the East Coast of the United States, what is the plan for Megan? Is that going to be repurposed to the West Coast? Is that going to stay on the East Coast? And then what becomes the contingency if, for example, the weather isn't good at the planned Pacific landing sites, whereas here you had the Gulf and the Atlantic?

Sarah Walker (03:34:53):

Hey, yeah. We don't know the answer yet to what will become of Megan. We've got Shannon here on the West Coast. I'm sitting here in California right now, and there's unique benefits and unique challenges of weather patterns on the West Coast versus the East Coast. Just one example, we have far more stable weather in terms of wind speed, wave height than we did in Florida, so where we needed numerous sites on both coasts of Florida to provide geographic diversity to avoid weather patterns that may be happening in one area and not another. Not so much the case on the West Coast. However, our cloud cover is different here than in Florida and so things like the airborne assets that support our mission might have different challenges out here than over there.

(03:35:43)
So we've done a lot of trying to learn from meteorologists and historical weather patterns and then figure out the right number of sites and the right number of support assets to ensure that we maintain a high return availability, which means a high percentage of days that would be a viable return option with a safe splash down, regardless of what coast we're splashing down on.

Speaker 16 (03:36:06):

All right. Our next question is from Esam with AFP.

(03:36:20)
If you're talking, we can't hear you.

Chris Davenport (03:36:23):

Oh, sorry about that. I was on mute. A couple of quick questions. Steve, you mentioned that they'd be released to their families in a day or two, but they're still going to be going through with rehabilitation for quite a while, right? If you could discuss that. And the second question is just a bit broader to follow on from some of my colleagues. As Steve confirmed that Crew-10 was the designated mission that this could happen, could you help us square that circle, praising the administration for accelerating the timeline? Just to follow up on my colleague's question, how concretely can the administration be credited with accelerating the recovery when the plan hasn't fundamentally changed here? It's just something that we're having a little bit of trouble understanding. Thank you.

Steve Stich (03:37:11):

Yeah, I'll talk the rehabilitation and let Joel talk about the other questions. Rehabilitation will continue. There's a sequence of exercises that they do to try to regain their physical strength over a number of weeks. It's a pretty standard protocol that they go through post landing to recover. It's well-documented, well practiced, and the docs and the trainers that do this work will follow each crew member, whether it be Butch and Suni or the others. We talk about Butch and Suni because they had a nine-month stay, but the others had 171-day stay or so, which is pretty typical of what we've had. And I'll let Joel handle the other questions.

Joel Montalbano (03:37:56):

So you were asking the input from the administration. So I think Ken Bowersock said it well the other day. It excited the system. It gave us some energy in the system, but the other input was to do this successfully and safely. And that's why I talked about all the different inputs that you get. We got the input from the White House, but you also have to look at the vehicle readiness. We talked about looking at weather. We talked about recovery team handover, the vehicle traffic going to and from the International Space Station. So when you put all that together, we came up with, I thought a pretty good plan, that the teams executed over the last four or five days.

Speaker 16 (03:38:38):

All right. We'll take the next question here in the room.

Darlene Faires (03:38:40):

I'm Darlene Faires with Fox 26 Houston. I was just wondering if any of the experiments or tasks, was there anything that was able to be done due to the unexpected extra manpower with them on board that wouldn't have a benefit to having the extra people?

Bill Spetch (03:39:01):

So we once Crew-9 arrived and Crew-8 departed, we were at our normal crew level. So we managed within the normal kind of cadence that we did there. But before that, we absolutely took advantage of Butch and Suni being there and having the extra hands. We had some maintenance activities that had to be done over the summer that would've potentially taken away from some of the science that we were doing that we didn't have to take away from that time because of the fact that we had the extra hands there. So it was great having them there over the summer as extra hands to help out with a number of activities going on.

Speaker 16 (03:39:40):

Okay. We'll take our next question here in the room.

Speaker 17 (03:39:42):

This may be premature, but initial reports from the recovery ship, just about their condition and how they're doing, has anybody heard?

Steve Stich (03:39:51):

I haven't heard anything specifically from the recovery team, but just in looking at the way, as they came out of Dragon, they all looked very healthy. You could tell they all looked like they were feeling about normal for the landing and recovery phase where their bodies trying to readapt. So yeah, I haven't heard any reports of anything other than that they're doing well.

Joel Montalbano (03:40:15):

I saw a lot of smiling and waving.

Steve Stich (03:40:17):

Yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 16 (03:40:20):

Okay. Our next question is from Ellen with the dailymail.com.

Ellen (03:40:26):

Hi. Thank you guys so much for taking our questions tonight. This question is for Joel. Barry Wilmore's daughter spoke out on social media and blamed politics and negligence for her dad's delayed return. We know that President Trump and Elon Musk both said the previous administration didn't want to bring the Starliner crew back for political reasons. Can you comment on these claims?

Joel Montalbano (03:40:46):

Yeah. So I wasn't involved in any conversations with the previous administration. It was clear we have a request from the current administration and the results you saw is what we saw today with the landing of Crew-9.

Speaker 16 (03:41:04):

Okay. We'll take our next question here in the room.

Speaker 18 (03:41:05):

Have you guys gotten a chance to talk with the families of Butch and Suni? I mean, I'm sure just being able to see them wave and smile today is a huge relief for them, but they've been in quarantine and up in space for almost a year. How are they feeling with everything?

Steve Stich (03:41:23):

I haven't talked personally to the families, but I know the astronauts have a great support system. In other words, they're able to effectively face time with their family and keep in touch with their family. I'm sure Butch is looking forward, and Suni, both coming… Easter's coming up and there's graduations coming up and there's lots of family activities coming up that the timing's probably pretty good for. So I haven't had a chance to talk to the family.

Joel Montalbano (03:41:52):

My guess they had bigger smiles than the crew members.

Steve Stich (03:41:54):

Yes, yes.

Speaker 16 (03:41:57):

Okay. Our next question is from Mike with space.com.

Mike (03:42:03):

Thank you guys. Yeah, this is probably for Sarah. I was just wondering, were there any different approaches that you guys took with this Dragon to meet this faster deadline, and if there were, if there are any kind of changes to the processing? Like are those things you can take into future missions?

Sarah Walker (03:42:28):

Hey. No changes to the processing. And actually if you're able to go back and listen to Friday night's briefing, I think Steve also shared a little more detail about that. But similar process, it's just a matter of doing a little bit of Tetris within our facilities of what vehicles are going into what tests or what operations in the prelaunch processing flow first. So we certainly did that. There's a few items of hardware within the vehicle that are unique to the specific crew flying. For example, we have small, medium and large seat buckets installed in each of the four locations, and then custom foam for each individual to further customize their experience. And so there is a little bit of just doing the tally on the unique hardware and making sure it was all okay to be used for this mission, but nothing unique to the actual processing flow itself.

Speaker 16 (03:43:27):

Okay, our next question is from Carolyn with Fortune Magazine.

Carolyn (03:43:32):

Thank you very much and congratulations. I'm wondering, can you just share a little more how Suni and Butch handled the switch mentally to the nine-month mission besides being very resilient and what advice you'd give the rest of lowly humans when we encounter challenging circumstances? And then maybe just talk a little more about the physical repercussions with respect to radiation effects on the [inaudible 03:43:59], that kind of thing and how are we going about planning to protect against that when we think about missions like to Mars and extended stays? Thanks.

Joel Montalbano (03:44:12):

I can start and then the other guys could ask. Before an astronaut flies, we talk to the crew. The crew members are talked to about extending, "Hey, you may be assigned for a six-month mission," or an eight-day mission in this case, "and you may be extended." Frank Rubio was an example, right? Mark Vande Hei was an example. So this isn't the first time that people are flown. Clearly their mission was much shorter than those other missions, but the crew members are talked about, "Hey, what would you do if you had to be up there for a year?" So they mentally prepare before they launch and they talk to the other crew members that have flown for these long duration missions. And so the teams are preparing.

(03:44:53)
We do different things on the ground. If you're there a little longer than normal, maybe you'll have some extra family conference times or maybe a half day off after a certain amount of time on orbit. And so we had experience from past crew members and we made changes in the operations and how we do that. And so let's see, Bill, if you want to add anything to that?

Bill Spetch (03:45:14):

Yeah, I think the other question was really on the effects of space on people in general and when you change the duration on them. We look at every crew member when they're going up and making sure that we feel confident even if their mission had to be extended, that they're up for it and that they've got the time allowable, I think, for them to stay in space and to go through that. We monitor everything on board. We keep an eye on things like radiation. We keep an eye on things like solar activity that can affect that. We keep an eye on the rest of the environmental factors on board, whether it be the carbon dioxide levels, the CO2 levels, the contaminants that we have on board. We have scrubbers and filters and things that take that out. So we do all the things that we would normally do to manage that for a crew and minimize their exposure to anything that could be considered harmful, and then we limit the times to the best of our ability that we can up there.

Speaker 16 (03:46:17):

Our next question is from Marcia Smith with SpacePolicyOnline.com.

Marcia Smith (03:46:23):

Thanks so much. Steve, you mentioned that Crew-11 might launch as early as July, which seems like a pretty short interval for Crew-10 to be up there. Could you talk about what's driving you to launch as early as July, and will either of the astronauts who were bumped from Crew-9 be on Crew-11, Stephanie Wilson or Zena Cardman, and which capsule will they be flying?

Steve Stich (03:46:49):

Let's see the timing for that mission right now. Originally we were going to fly that mission. If you look at historically, our rotations have been in February and August. There is a particular SpaceX cargo flight, CRS-33 that has the ability to do some re-boost for the space station and that needs to fly in that late August, early September timeframe. And so we moved our handover up. That boost trunk is what we call it, will be there for a large part of the fall timeframe to get all the propellant used on that mission. So that's why we looked at moving it up. Right now we think we'll fly probably the capsule 206, which is our fleet leader. It'll be on its sixth flight. We'll continue to work that with SpaceX.

(03:47:46)
You have to remember with Space Station that one of the critical consumables is docking ports. We have two of those docking ports. And so once we fly that CRS-33 mission with the boost trunk, one of those docking ports will be tied up for an extended duration. And you know, we like to do this direct handover. We'd like to ensure the new vehicle is there, the new crew is there before we undock the astronauts that have been there for the increment in progress. And so when you put all that together, it drove us to look at right now, mid to late July. Of course, things can change over time, but that's what we're looking at. We'll pivot over to that once we complete the debriefs for Crew-10.

Speaker 16 (03:48:31):

Our next question is from Will Robinson-Smith with Spaceflight Now?

Will Robinson-Smith (03:48:37):

Hi, I'm taking another question from us. Question to Steve. Going back to the comment you made earlier in this briefing. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you said that there was another look that needed to be taken at the flight suit for those flying [inaudible 03:48:55] Can you add a little bit of detail to making the change and the reason for that?

Speaker 16 (03:49:04):

Did you get that?

Steve Stich (03:49:06):

I couldn't-

Speaker 16 (03:49:07):

I'm sorry. It's breaking up a little bit. Can you please try to repeat your question?

(03:49:21)
Operator, if you could please unmute the participant. Will, if you're talking, we can't hear you.

Will Robinson-Smith (03:49:35):

Can you hear me?

Speaker 16 (03:49:36):

Yep, we can hear you now.

Will Robinson-Smith (03:49:39):

Okay, perfect.

Speaker 16 (03:49:46):

I'm sorry we keep losing you. If you could just follow up with us after this news conference, we'll be happy to get a response over to you from the panel up here. But for now, that'll do it for our press conference this evening. Once again, Crew-9 is safely back on Earth and as always, you can follow NASA and all of our missions on nasa.gov. Thanks for joining. We'll see you next time.