Private astronauts return to Earth, marking another successful mission for SpaceX

The International Space Station (ISS) has four fewer residents this morning following the successful return of the Axiom 2 (Ax-2) crew.

The quartet of private astronauts splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico late Tuesday night, ending a 10-day mission. 

Strapped inside the Dragon spacecraft, named Freedom, were four private astronauts: Peggy Whitson, the mission's commander and one of NASA's most accomplished astronauts; John Shoffner, an entrepreneur and STEM advocate; and two Saudi astronauts — Ali AlQarni, a fighter pilot; and Rayyanah Barnawi, a stem cell biologist.

"SpaceX, we would like to tell you, that was a phenomenal ride," said Whitson, a former NASA astronaut and veteran of four spaceflights, just after splashdown. "We really enjoyed all of it."

The Ax-2 mission is the second private astronaut mission operated by Axiom Space, with more in the works for the future. During their brief stay on the space station, the crew were not tourists — kept busy conducting and participating in more than a dozen research investigations and doing outreach to inspire the next generation of explorers. 

It was a historic flight for Barnawi and Alquari because the duo became only the second and third Saudis to fly to space and the first to reach the space station.

"Every story comes to an end, and this is only the beginning of a new era for our country and our region," Barnawi said during a farewell ceremony Monday on the ISS. "So I'd just like to thank everyone here who has helped us."

Their landing came on the anniversary of SpaceX's first human spaceflight, a mission called Demo-2. As part of that mission, NASA and SpaceX launched two astronauts — Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley — to the ISS to certify the crew Dragon spacecraft to routinely ferry astronauts. 

The success of that mission returned human spaceflight to American soil and provided NASA, as well as its partner agencies around the world, with new avenues to space. In 2011, the agency's storied space shuttle program ended, leaving the world dependent upon Russia for the only means of sending humans to space. 

It took nearly a decade, but SpaceX, the first of two commercial crew providers, made history by launching two astronauts to the space station and returning them to their families. Since that day, SpaceX has launched more than 30 humans into space over 10 missions in three years.

That success includes six crew rotations for NASA, including the current group of Crew-6 astronauts on board the ISS; two private astronaut missions for Axiom Space; one additional private spaceflight mission called Inspiration4 to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Center; and the Demo-2 mission that started it all. 

This capability is paramount because it provides more opportunities to reach space and gives NASA a U.S. crew member on each flight who can maximize the science output on each mission. 

NASA's second commercial crew partner, Boeing, is gearing up for a crew test flight that is scheduled for this summer.

During that mission, NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore will strap into the Starliner capsule and blast off on a two-week mission to the space station, where they will make sure the Starliner is working as expected and can be certified to routinely carry crew members, just like the Dragon. 

That test flight is currently scheduled for no earlier than July 21.