SpaceX Capsule Splashes Down South Of Pensacola; Fireball Seen Across Escambia County

November 9, 2021

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-2 astronauts safely splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Pensacola Monday night aboard the Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft, completing the agency’s second long-duration commercial crew mission to the International Space Station.

Across Escambia County, residents could see the fireball from the returning spacecraft streak across the sky like a meteor.

“It was cool! Glad I got to witness it,” one NorthEscambia.com reader wrote on our Facebook page. “We saw it coming down from our yard in Walnut Hill,” another reader posted.

“Endeavour, on behalf of SpaceX, welcome home to planet Earth,” flight control told the crew after confirmation of splashdown.

“It’s great to be back,” an astronaut replied.

The mission set a record for the longest spaceflight by a U.S. crewed spacecraft. The international crew of four spent 199 days in orbit, surpassing the 168 days set by NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission earlier this year.

NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Thomas Pesquet returned to Earth in a parachute-assisted splashdown at 9:33 p.m. south of Pensacola. Crews aboard SpaceX recovery vessels successfully recovered the spacecraft and astronauts. After returning to shore, the astronauts were to fly back to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The Crew-2 mission launched April 23 on a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Crew Dragon Endeavour docked to the Harmony module’s forward port of the space station April 24, nearly 24-hours after liftoff.

Kimbrough, McArthur, Hoshide, and Pesquet traveled 84,653,119 statute miles during their mission, stayed 198 days aboard the space station, and completed 3,194 orbits around Earth.

Comments

9 Responses to “SpaceX Capsule Splashes Down South Of Pensacola; Fireball Seen Across Escambia County”

  1. Alicia on November 11th, 2021 11:35 am

    My daughter and I watched this together. It was an amazing experience to see this. How wonderful of these 4 astronauts to do what they do!

  2. John Imm on November 10th, 2021 6:33 am

    It was really cool to see. Pensacola is such a great place to live and this just is one more cool thing we get to see now.

  3. Charles Standlee on November 9th, 2021 8:45 pm

    We got to watch their return from Gulf State Park. My 17 yo Son was so excited to watch their return he was shaking. I’m so thankful to have a private space company give me the opportunity to show him this. It keeps dreams going strong until they have a chance to become reality. What a Country we live in.

  4. MR REALITY on November 9th, 2021 8:01 pm

    is that an igloo cooler full of cold cut and dranks?

  5. Oldman on November 9th, 2021 7:18 pm

    I live up on 99 where it’s pretty dark at night and I watch the Space Station fly over my house several times a week, download ISS Detector, it’s free and it will tell you when it’s coming and which direction to look. That thing is huge and lit up like a football field.

  6. Citizen on November 9th, 2021 10:38 am

    Very Cool !!

    Hate that I didn’t know it was coming and didn’t see it.

  7. concerned on November 9th, 2021 10:03 am

    e-t- — phone home

  8. William Lingo on November 9th, 2021 9:20 am

    I think it’s exciting that Pensacola is able to witness the return of these space craft, that the panhandle is finally able to witness part of Florida’s space force after so many decades.

  9. James on November 9th, 2021 5:05 am

    Remarkable to imagine the crew orbiting Earth 16 times each day, or every 1.5 hours.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News