LOS ANGELES — Four astronauts from the United States, France and Russia returned to Earth on Thursday, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast after nearly eight months aboard the International Space Station.

NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 mission ended at 11:34 a.m. EDT, when the SpaceX Dragon capsule Freedom parachuted into the ocean off California, wrapping up a long-duration mission of research and station maintenance.

Welcome home!Crew-12 splashed down in the Pacific on Thursday, Oct. 8. Their 237-day mission aboard the @Space_Station included research into medicine, quantum science, and 3D-printing with metal in low Earth orbit. https://t.co/bHE4QrN1r5 pic.twitter.com/QzBt6v9Ak3— NASA (@NASA) October 8, 2026

Welcome home!Crew-12 splashed down in the Pacific on Thursday, Oct. 8. Their 237-day mission aboard the @Space_Station included research into medicine, quantum science, and 3D-printing with metal in low Earth orbit. https://t.co/bHE4QrN1r5 pic.twitter.com/QzBt6v9Ak3

The crew included NASA astronauts Jessica Meir, the mission commander, and Jack Hathaway, the pilot, along with European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot of France and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, both mission specialists.

The crew's journey began Wednesday morning, when Dragon undocked at 8:05 a.m. EDT from the space-facing port of the station's Harmony module. The four then spent about 27.5 hours aboard the capsule before splashdown.

After undocking, Freedom fired a series of departure burns to move away from the station and then lowered its orbit. Following its deorbit burn, the spacecraft jettisoned its trunk and reentered the atmosphere before........

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