Crew-12 Return: Dragon Freedom Splashdown Off Los Angeles

How does a Dragon capsule take four astronauts from 17,500 miles per hour to a 16-mile-per-hour splashdown in the Pacific? On 8 October 2026, Dragon Freedom did it with NASA's Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA's Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev aboard. The capsule splashed down off the coast of Los Angeles, California, at 8:34 a.m. Pacific time (11:34 a.m. Eastern), ending the 237-day Crew-12 mission.

Leaving the station

Dragon Freedom undocked from the International Space Station at 8:05 a.m. Eastern (5:05 a.m. Pacific) on Wednesday, 7 October. Crew-12 had spent about a week packing and sharing lessons learned with the Crew-13 astronauts, who had launched and docked on Thursday, 1 October, after a phasing period of about seven and a half hours. Once the crew left the approach ellipsoid, an imaginary ellipsoid around the station that governs arriving and departing vehicles, SpaceX mission control took over from the joint NASA and SpaceX teams. The crew then took off their suits for the trip home, and put them back on ahead of re-entry, with leak checks. The journey from undocking to splashdown lasted about 27 and a half hours. The time from undocking to landing at the primary site can range from less than six hours to 36 hours, depending on orbital mechanics and where the station is relative to the splashdown site.

The de-orbit sequence

The de-orbit burn began at 7:46 a.m. Pacific and used the four Draco thrusters under the nose cone, executed at the apogee, the highest point of the orbit. It lasted about nine and a half minutes, and SpaceX called the performance nominal. Afterwards the nose cone, open since the capsule reached orbit in February, was closed. Dragon then separated the claw, which ended the data, power and fluid connections to the trunk, and jettisoned the trunk to expose the heat shield. The trunk's solar cells could no longer charge the batteries, but Dragon carried enough stored battery power to get home. The capsule flew autonomously throughout; the crew monitored touchscreens while strapped in.

Re-entry and the blackout

Before re-entry, mission control's crew operations resource engineer, Mary Cooper, gave a final entry briefing and predicted a communications blackout from 1521 to 1527 Zulu. The crew confirmed their tablets and seat belts were secure and their visors down. Entry began around 8:22 a.m. Pacific, heat shield first. Plasma around the vehicle cut off telemetry and voice communication for roughly seven minutes, with temperatures around the vehicle reaching up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Peak loads were about 3 to 5 G. The heat shield is made of PICA 3.0, phenolic impregnated carbon ablator, developed for Dragon 2 from earlier generations that began with NASA work on studying and sampling comets. When contact resumed, the engineer called "We have you live and clear."

Parachutes and splashdown

Just before drogue deployment the seats rotated automatically by about 26 degrees. Two drogue parachutes deployed at about 350 miles per hour and 18,000 feet, and Hathaway reported two healthy drogues. The four main parachutes opened at about 119 miles per hour and 6,500 feet. The commentators noted that without the drogues the mains would have to be three times stronger and heavier. Dragon touched down at about 16 miles per hour. After the call "Brace for splash," Meir thanked SpaceX, NASA, ESA, Roscosmos and partners and reported four mains fired.

Dragon settled in the "stable one" configuration, nose cone up, and released its main parachutes to keep wind from dragging it, then safed any remaining pyrotechnics.

Recovery on the ship Shannon

Two fast boats and a jet-skier reached the capsule first. They swept for hypergolic propellant vapors and checked for unfired ordnance before rigging began; the second boat recovered the parachutes. The recovery ship Shannon, staged about three nautical miles away, followed, and a hydraulic lift raised the capsule into its nest on deck. Salt water was washed off, since it can erode things quickly, and the capsule was moved to the egress platform. The side hatch was opened, a SpaceX medical doctor checked the crew, and a protective device was fitted to guard the hatch seal. Wave height was about four feet and winds about seven knots.

The crew was helped out one by one, sliding from the hatch to the platform: Meir first, then Hathaway, Adenot and Fedyaev. They were then to go to the medical bay, be flown to land by helicopter, and board a plane to Houston for a reconditioning programme of about 45 days.

The crew's numbers

• Of the 237 days, 235 were spent docked to the station. The crew completed 3,792 orbits and more than 100 million statute miles.
• They contributed to more than 250 investigations and spent more than a thousand hours on science, including the IV Gen mini system for making intravenous saline from drinkable water.
• Meir, commander, now has 442 days in space over two flights, the 10th most for a NASA astronaut. Her four spacewalks on this mission totalled 27 hours 38 minutes; her seven career spacewalks total 49 hours 22 minutes.
• Hathaway, pilot, flew for the first time.
• Adenot, on her first flight, did three spacewalks totalling 19 hours 42 minutes. Her 237 days are the seventh most for an ESA astronaut.
• Fedyaev, on his second flight after Crew-6, has 423 total days in space and is the first Russian cosmonaut to fly twice in Dragon.

Dragon Freedom

Dragon Freedom first launched on 27 April 2022 on Crew-4, whose crew named it, honouring Alan Shepard's Freedom 7. It also flew Axiom Mission 2 in May 2023, Axiom Mission 3 in January 2024 and Crew-9. After the splashdown the station population fell from 11 to seven. Crew-12 was the 12th operational SpaceX flight in NASA's commercial crew programme. The next cargo mission was targeted for launch on Tuesday, 13 October, carrying more than 6,300 pounds of supplies and the final two ISS rollout solar arrays.