NASA astronauts travelling to Earth aboard a SpaceX capsule are delayed by weather

The International Space Station will be home to four astronauts on Friday after a six-month stay. The astronauts shared goodbye hugs with other astronauts on the space station and were strapped into their spaceship around 10 am. The Crew Dragon is on its way to the International Space Station and will burn its engines several times to gradually lower its altitude. It is expected to land off Florida Friday afternoon. Friday is now the target for NASA and SpaceX. The Crew Dragon could splash down off the coast of Florida just a few hours later, according to a NASA press release. 

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As unpredictable storms batter the spashdown sites off Florida, weather delays are common. Mission teams are watching a cold front pass through Florida. According to NASA, there will be high winds and rainy weather near the splashdown zones off the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Current weather predictions are showing greater forecast certainty Friday due to a high-pressure system behind the cold front which is expected to bring more favorable conditions for splashdown and recovery. The weather is expected to be reviewed by ground crews overnight. There are seven possible landing zones for the Crew Dragon spaceship, which will bring the astronauts home. It is not clear which splashdown site NASA will be targeting on Friday.

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 Watkins is the first black woman to join the space station crew for an extended stay. Since 1983, more than a dozen Black Americans have traveled to space, including five women. Since 2000, the International Space Station has hosted more than 250 astronauts, but no Black woman has ever had the chance to live and work in space. NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket with the Orion spacecraft aboard is seen atop a mobile launcher at Launch Complex 39B, right, as a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft onboard is seen on the launch pad at Launch Complex 39A. 

During their stay, the astronauts conducted science experiments, including research on how to grow vegetables in space without soil and the study of spaceflight effects on the human body. The idea behind the program was to allow private companies to design, build and test a new spaceship to serve NASA astronauts while still giving the company ownership over the vehicle. The United States had to purchase seats on Russian spaceships to get its astronauts to and from the International Space Station after the retirement of NASA's Space Shuttle Program in 2011. Two NASA astronauts were sent to the space station by the launch of the demo-2 mission from the US in 2020. Crew-4 is the fifth flight carried out by the company as part of its NASA partnership, and the space agency has continued purchasing additional flights from the company led by founder and CEO Musk.

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 Less than a week after the Crew-5 astronauts arrived on a separate capsule, the Crew-4 astronauts return to Earth. The two mission teams have been together for a few days in a handoff period. NASA officials have continued to extend the agency's partnership with SpaceX, growing the value of their overall deal to encompass 15 total crewed missions at a value of more than $4 9 billion. The Crew Dragon is owned by the company since it was developed under a fixed-price contract. The privately held company can sell seats to anyone it pleases. Two Crew Dragon missions were funded by wealthy thrill-seekers. There are future private missions in the works.