SpaceX Crew Dragon Returns to Earth from the ISS

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Yesterday Spacex’s Crew Dragon successfully returned from the ISS, deploying its parachutes as it descended back to Earth to land off the coast of Florida in the Atlantic Ocean.

It is the US’ first crew capable spacecraft in 8 years. The previous one was the space shuttle. Since then we’ve been paying the Russians upwards of $82 million dollars per Soyuz seat to place astronauts on the ISS.

This Crew Dragon mission was unmanned. A future mission, end of summer 2019 at the earliest, probably end of 2019, will include astronauts. NASA looks set to buy 2 more Soyuz seats to cover the gap between the first and second successful CD launch with astronauts to the ISS. These will likely be the last 2 seats we buy from the Russians.