NASA astronaut Anne McClain and three of her colleagues are spending their last evening aboard the International Space Station (ISS) after a five-month stay in orbit.
McClain, fellow NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi of JAXA, and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov of Roscosmos, are part of SpaceX’s Crew-10 and are set to return to Earth inside Crew Dragon Endurance shortly after midday on Thursday — assuming the weather conditions are suitable at the splashdown site off the coast of Florida.
McClain and her Crew-10 colleagues have spent the last week showing the ropes to Crew-11, who arrived aboard another Crew Dragon spacecraft.
The American astronaut posted a striking image on X on Wednesday, taken from one of the Dragon spacecrafts and showing the other one, with Earth directly below and an aurora in the far distance.
“Dragon Endurance and Crew-10 are settled in for our last night aboard the Space Station,” McClain wrote in her post. “When there are two crews aboard during handover, we get this unique view from the zenith-docked Dragon looking down at the forward-docked Dragon. Tomorrow, Crew-10 will strap ourselves into this Dragon and head home. But tonight, one more breathtaking view.”
In another post on X, McClain said she found it hard to believe that her time in orbit was “coming to a close already,” adding, “What a great trip this has been.”
In their five months aboard the ISS, Crew-10 spent much of their time conducting science research in microgravity.
The work included an investigation into how radiation and gravity environments at different orbital altitudes affect plant growth — important for future long-duration crewed missions to deep space — and a look at how cells sense gravity, with the findings possibly leading to therapies for treating muscle and bone conditions.
They also captured images of simultaneous lightning events at the top of two thunderstorms, with scientists using such data to study various weather conditions in Earth’s upper atmosphere. The research can help to better protect communication systems and aircraft while improving atmospheric models and weather forecasts.
