Four astronauts are home after nearly eight months aboard the International Space Station. At 11:34 a.m. EDT on October 8, the Crew Dragon "Freedom" carrying NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about 50 miles west of Los Angeles, where the SpaceX recovery ship Shannon retrieved the crew.
The returning crew: commander Jessica Meir (NASA, US), pilot Jack Hathaway (NASA, US), mission specialist Sophie Adenot (France, ESA), and mission specialist Andrey Fedyaev (Russia). The spacecraft undocked from the station at 8:05 a.m. EDT on October 7 before its day-and-a-half journey home.
According to NASA's official blog, the mission logged 237 days in space — 235 of them aboard the station — traveling more than 100 million miles and circling Earth nearly 3,800 times. A standard rotation runs about six months; Crew-12's stay was notably extended.
The eight-month "overtime" had a cause. In January 2026, the crew Crew-12 was meant to relieve — Crew-11 — came home about a month early after commander Mike Fincke fell ill, marking the first medical evacuation in NASA's 65-year human spaceflight history. The station was left with a skeleton crew of three, and spacewalks were suspended.
Crew-12 launched on an accelerated schedule from Cape Canaveral on the morning of February 13 to fill the gap, and what was supposed to be a six-month tour stretched into October. Their relief, Crew-13, launched on October 1 and arrived the same day, completing a seamless handover.
The mission had its milestones. Adenot became the first French woman to perform a spacewalk — and only the second French woman in space since 1996. Meir's cumulative time in orbit reached 440 days, putting her in NASA's top ten. Hathaway and Adenot were both first-time flyers.
Per NASA's blog, the crew conducted four spacewalks over the mission and ran dozens of science experiments, including stem-cell research, crystal growth in space, and studies of bone loss in microgravity. It was also SpaceX's 20th time carrying humans to orbit.
Crew-12's safe return closes the book on a scheduling cascade triggered by a medical emergency. The station is back to a full seven-person complement, with experiments and spacewalks back on track.
For NASA, the bigger test lies ahead: during the mission, the crew watched the Artemis II lunar flyby. As the Moon program ramps up, station rotations will only get tighter — and this 237-day endurance run just proved the system can absorb the unexpected.