On Sunday, the French, Japanese and American astronauts were alleged to leave the International Space Station, with their capsule landing in the Gulf of Mexico early Monday (Nov. 8). But with high winds off the Florida coast, SpaceX pushed back the departure to Monday afternoon to accomplish their 6-month mission.
The expedition back to Earth from Space is never easy, but the space traveler abroad, the space capsule returning home would’ve an additional challenge to cope with – no working toilet. The toilet in the SpaceX capsule is broken, and the four crew members will need to wear diapers while slashing down.
Getting ready to come home and these last few nights of aurora viewing from @Space_Station have felt like a gift. Hopefully some of you are enjoying the view from the other side too! pic.twitter.com/bUKGNi180J
— Megan McArthur (@Astro_Megan) November 6, 2021
In this weekend’s news briefing, Megan McArthur confirmed that the toilets on the board are broken. She said with a smile that’s suboptimal. But they’re ready to manage. Space flight is full of challenges; that is just another that they’d come across and take care of in their mission. So, therefore, they’re not much worried about that.
“Very Intense Mission”
After spending around 200 days in Space, NASA astronauts Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough, along with European Space Agency’s Thomas Pesquet and Akihiko Hoshide of Japan, would say “Goodbye” to their mates on Sunday. And they’d board their Crew Dragon capsule named “SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavor” for the journey towards Earth. Now splashdown is set for Monday at 10:33 PM (EDT 0333 GMT).
Thomas Pesquet, an expedition commander and French ESA’s astronaut, said in a news briefing over the weekend that it’d been a very intense mission, numerous things happened. They conducted a sequence of spacewalks installing solar panels to improve the power grid of the station and grew the foremost green-chili peppers in space. They got to examine their harvest in the recent week, adding pieces of red and green peppers to tacos.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched them to the space station on April 23, and their cabin is certified for a maximum of two hundred and ten days in space. So Nov. 5 (Friday) was the 196th day aloft. After that, however, two Russians and one American will stay in orbit.