WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

NASA astronaut Douglas Hurley, followed by flight surgeon Joe Dervay, arrives at Ellington Field near the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Aug. 2, 2020, for a welcome home ceremony after a successful splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico for NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission. After spending two months in space, the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, carrying Hurley and crewmate Robert Behnken, splashed down off the coast of Pensacola, Florida, at 2:48 p.m. EDT. Part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, Behnken and Hurley are the first astronauts to launch to the International Space Station from U.S. soil since the end of the shuttle program in 2011. The final flight test for SpaceX, Demo-2 will pave the way for the agency to certify the company’s transportation system for regular, crewed flights to the orbiting laboratory.