NASA astronauts splash down safely in SpaceX capsule

In UPI, Glenn Singer reports on the successful splashdown of the astronauts today.

Sunday's re-entry marked the first splashdown of a U.S. space capsule carrying astronauts since the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the American half of which was launched from Kennedy Space Center in 1975. That was the final flight of the Apollo spacecraft.

Crew Dragon traveled as fast as 17,500 mph after re-entering the atmosphere, but that slowed to 16 mph just before splashdown in an area with 1-foot waves and virtually no wind.

The astronauts traveled for more than 19 hours in the capsule, and could have stayed aboard Endeavour in the Gulf for two days had a problem occurred with their recovery. They made 1,024 orbits during the mission, all but a few on the space station.

The SpaceX mission was called a demonstration flight, which is the final step toward certification of the SpaceX capsule for regular trips to the space station.

Read more here.