Elon Musk's SpaceX Brings NASA Crew-2 Astronauts Back Home

Tesla Inc TSLA CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX on Monday flew back Crew-2 astronauts, who spent about 200 days at the International Space Station, safely back to earth.

What Happened: The Crew-2 mission was SpaceX’s fourth such trip to Earth after the capsule was docked to the International Space Station on April 24.

Smiles, thumbs up, and peace signs. The @SpaceX Crew-2 astronauts are happy to be home after six months in space. pic.twitter.com/W9ziABkq0k

— NASA (@NASA) November 9, 2021

The trip brought back the crew of four astronauts — Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur of NASA, Akihiko Hoshide of Japan’s space agency, and Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency.

See Also: Elon Musk's SpaceX Now Expects To Launch Crew-3 On Wednesday After 2nd Delay

The astronauts flew down off the coast near Pensacola, Florida at 10:33 p.m. EST after leaving the space station at 2:05 p.m. EST.

Since this Dragon also completed the 63-day Demo-2 mission last year, it has now clocked over 260 days in space

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 9, 2021

Why It Matters: SpaceX and the U.S. space agency NASA are now targeting the launch of the Crew-3 mission — which would fly astronauts to the international space station —to take place on Wednesday. 

The Crew-3 mission was first scheduled to take place on Oct. 31 but has since been delayed twice. NASA now aims to return the astronauts from Crew-2 before Crew-3 is launched.

Musk dreams of colonizing Mars and has in the past said he remains “highly confident” that SpaceX would land humans on Mars by 2026.

SpaceX and Blue Origin also compete with each other in the recently launched space tourism flights. 

Price Action: Musk owns SpaceX, the development is however unlikely to have an impact on Tesla shares, which closed 4.92% lower at $1,162 a share on Monday.

Photo: Courtesy of Nasa