Dragon spacecraft leaves ISS with Pole on board
The Dragon spacecraft carrying four astronauts, including Poland's Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, departed from the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday and is heading towards Earth.
The spaceflight was launched on June 25 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and a day later it successfully docked with the ISS. The astronauts spent more than two weeks at the station, conducting dozens of experiments.
The Dragon is expected to splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California at 11:30 CET on Tuesday, after a 22-hour flight.
Apart from Uznanski, the mission comprises Peggy Whitson from the US, Shubhanshu Shukla from India and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.
The spaceflight under the Axiom 4 mission has been coordinated by the US space agency NASA, US space infrastructure developer Axiom Space, and US billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX, which provided the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft. Uznanski-Wisniewski's participation in the Ax-4 mission follows a 2023 agreement between Poland's Ministry of Development and Technology and the European Space Agency to carry out the IGNIS scientific mission to the ISS.
After being lifted from the sea by a SpaceX vessel, the astronauts will be taken to Houston by helicopter. Uznanski-Wisniewski will then be flown to Europe. (PAP)
jd/jch
