After Eight Months in Space, SpaceX Crew-12 Is Home

The SpaceX Crew-12 splashdown happened right on schedule Thursday morning. At 11:34 a.m. Eastern time, a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule parachuted into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Los Angeles, carrying four astronauts home after nearly eight months aboard the International Space Station. It was the 20th time SpaceX has sent humans into orbit — and the SpaceX Crew-12 splashdown was another clean ending for the NASA commercial crew program. Follow World Reach Daily for continuing coverage.

Commander Jessica Meir, pilot Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev are all back on Earth. Recovery teams on the ship Shannon secured the capsule, named Freedom, and helped the crew out one by one.

SpaceX Crew-12 Splashdown Caps a 237-Day Mission

Crew-12 launched on February 13, 2026, aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. They docked with the station the next day, February 14, and didn’t leave until this week.

The trip home started Wednesday, October 7, when the Dragon undocked from the station’s Harmony module at 8:05 a.m. Eastern. The crew then spent about a day orbiting Earth inside the capsule before the deorbit sequence began. At 10:46 a.m. Eastern on Thursday, the spacecraft fired its thrusters for nine minutes, just enough to nudge it out of orbit and send it plunging toward the atmosphere.

Forty-five minutes before splashdown, the crew was still moving at an orbital speed of 17,500 mph. Then came the fire.

The Fiery Ride Home

Reentry is the most violent part of any spaceflight. The capsule slammed into the atmosphere at nearly five miles per second, and its ablative heat shield absorbed temperatures up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit. For several minutes, the crew was surrounded by superheated plasma — the communications blackout period every returning astronaut trains for.

Over roughly half an hour, the capsule slowed from hypersonic speed to a few hundred miles per hour. Then four orange-and-white parachutes took over, easing the Dragon down until it was drifting at just 16 mph above the Pacific. The SpaceX Crew-12 splashdown ended with a gentle plop into the water, about 50 miles west of Los Angeles.

The SpaceX Crew-12 splashdown is part of the new normal: NASA and SpaceX shifted crewed recovery operations from Florida to the Pacific in early 2025. The four astronauts who flew around the moon on NASA’s Artemis II mission also splashed down off Southern California, near San Diego, back in April.

What the Crew Did Up There

Eight months on the station is a long shift, and Crew-12 kept busy. NASA says the crew completed dozens of science experiments, including studies of stem cells, how crystals grow in microgravity, and how bones lose density without gravity pulling on them. That bone-loss research matters more every year as NASA plans longer missions beyond Earth orbit.

They didn’t stay inside the whole time, either. Meir conducted four spacewalks totaling just over 27 hours, working on maintenance and upgrades to the aging orbital outpost. Adenot went out three times herself.

Before departing, Meir handed command of the station to Roscosmos cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov in a traditional change-of-command ceremony on Sunday, October 4. Dubrov will stay aboard with Anna Kikina and Anil Menon until spring 2027.

Crew-13 Has Already Taken Over

The station never sits empty. The Crew-13 replacements — NASA’s Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney, Canada’s Josh Kutryk, and Roscosmos’ Sergey Teteryatnikov — arrived October 1 and will run a six-month rotation. Crew-12 packed their personal gear, cargo, and science samples, closed the hatch on October 7, and left the newcomers in charge.

There’s a human side to all of this that the schedules and speeds tend to bury. In a pre-departure news conference last month, Meir talked about what she was looking forward to most. “So looking forward to seeing nature again, feeling the breeze on my face, the wind rustling through the leaves,” she said. “Experiencing all those things that we don’t have up here.”

She also said she couldn’t wait to be reunited with her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter. And the two things she’d miss about space? Weightlessness, and the views of Earth.

NASA held a news briefing Thursday afternoon to discuss the return, and live coverage of the whole homecoming streamed on the agency’s NASA+ service. For anyone keeping score: Dragon did exactly what Dragon does. Launch, dock, live, work, come home.

Sources and Resources

Expedition 75 Welcomes Crew-13 and Preps for Crew-12 Departure — NASA

4 people on NASA’s Crew-12 mission return to Earth after 8 months in space — WAMC / NPR

Dramatic moment SpaceX astronauts blast back to Earth before splashdown off SoCal — New York Post

8 months after Florida launch, SpaceX Crew-12 astronauts return to Earth — Florida Today

Frequently Asked Questions

When did the SpaceX Crew-12 splashdown happen?

The Crew Dragon capsule splashed down at 11:34 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday, October 8, 2026, in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Los Angeles, California. Recovery teams then secured the spacecraft and brought it aboard the recovery ship Shannon.

Who was on the Crew-12 mission?

Four people: NASA commander Jessica Meir, NASA pilot Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency mission specialist Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev. They’d been on the International Space Station since February 14, 2026 — about 237 days.

How hot does the capsule get during reentry?

The heat shield battles temperatures up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit as the capsule hits the atmosphere at nearly five miles per second. Four parachutes then slow it from a few hundred miles per hour to just 16 mph before it touches the water.

Why do SpaceX capsules splash down in the Pacific now?

NASA and SpaceX moved crewed recovery operations from Florida to the West Coast in early 2025. The Pacific recovery zone off California — where Artemis II also splashed down in April — is now the standard landing area for commercial crew missions.

What did Crew-12 do on the space station?

The crew ran dozens of science experiments, including research on stem cells, crystal growth in microgravity, and bone loss in space. Meir performed four spacewalks (27+ hours) and Adenot three, doing maintenance and upgrades on the station. Crew-13 arrived October 1 to take over.

Conclusion

The SpaceX Crew-12 splashdown closed out a 237-day mission with the kind of precision that now looks routine: undock Wednesday, nine-minute deorbit burn Thursday morning, a fireball through the atmosphere, four parachutes, and a calm Pacific landing at 11:34 a.m. Eastern. Twenty crewed SpaceX flights in, “routine” is the whole point. Behind it were four people coming home to gravity, breeze, and — for Jessica Meir — a three-and-a-half-year-old daughter. The science keeps moving forward, but the homecomings never really get old.