SpaceX’s Crew-12 Is Home After 100 Million Miles, and One Astronaut Just Joined NASA’s Top 10

Dragon descends under its four main parachutes moments before Crew-12’s splashdown off Los Angeles. Credit: SpaceX/X

SpaceX’s Dragon Freedom splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off Los Angeles at 8:34 a.m. PT on Thursday, bringing NASA’s Crew-12 astronauts home after 237 days aboard the International Space Station.

On board were NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. “Splashdown of Dragon confirmed!” SpaceX posted minutes later, along with video of the capsule’s final descent.

According to NASA, the four traveled more than 100 million miles and completed more than 3,792 orbits of Earth. SpaceX recovery teams retrieved the capsule and crew shortly after landing. After standard medical checks, the crew will fly to shore and head back to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“Building the capability, experience, and confidence to do this repeatedly is exactly what will allow us to go farther,” NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said.

Crew-12 lifted off on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral at 5:15 a.m. ET on February 13 and docked with the station a day later. It was the first spaceflight for Hathaway and Adenot and the second for Meir and Fedyaev. Dragon undocked at 8:05 a.m. ET on Wednesday, then spent just over a day lowering its orbit before Thursday’s reentry.

The crew’s research included stem cell production for cell-based therapies, making IV fluid on demand for future missions, and studying how the bacteria behind pneumonia can cause long-term heart damage. NASA also highlighted work on quantum science and 3D printing with metal in orbit.

Meir completed four spacewalks on this flight, bringing her career total to seven, third among NASA women behind Peggy Whitson and Suni Williams. Her 440 cumulative days in space now place her in NASA’s top 10. Adenot made three spacewalks of her own, becoming the first French woman to work outside the station.

Thursday’s Pacific landing reflects a bigger shift, too. SpaceX moved Dragon recoveries off Florida after pieces of the capsule’s trunk survived reentry and landed on the ground. Dragon now fires its deorbit burn before dropping the trunk, so any leftover debris falls into the ocean. SpaceX confirmed exactly that sequence on Thursday morning, and Crew-10 became the first NASA crew to splash down off California last year.

NASA hasn’t given an update on the crew’s health beyond saying they’ll go through routine medical screenings, and it hasn’t published the exact splashdown coordinates. Neither NASA nor SpaceX has said when Dragon Freedom will fly next, or when results from Crew-12’s experiments will be released.

The crew will discuss the mission at a news conference at Johnson on October 15 at 12:30 p.m. PT, minus Adenot, who is heading back to Europe. Dragon isn’t slowing down: Crew-13 launched to the station on October 1, and CRS-35 is set to launch October 13 with the station’s last set of Roll-Out Solar Arrays. NASA has also booked three more crew flights through Crew-17, so the Pacific off Los Angeles will be seeing plenty more Dragons.