The four astronauts of SpaceX's Crew-12 — NASA's Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA's Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos' Andrey Fedyaev — splashed down in the Pacific off the coast of Los Angeles at 11:34 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, aboard the Crew Dragon capsule "Freedom." After undocking from the International Space Station on Oct. The crew was pulled from the capsule aboard a recovery ship within the hour. "The crew is doing well. They were all smiles exiting the capsule," said Bill Spetch, deputy manager of commercial for NASA's Low Earth Orbit Program.

Crew-12's mission exists because of an unprecedented event. Crew-11 headed home a month early on Jan. 15 after NASA's Mike Fincke experienced a medical issue — the first medical evacuation in the long history of the International Space Station, though NASA stressed at the time it was not an emergency. Fincke retired in August with 549 days in space, and the skeleton crew of three that remained ran the station until Meir's quartet arrived on Feb. 13. The Associated Press notes the crew also watched Artemis II fly around the Moon and celebrated America's 250th birthday from orbit, with Meir joining the Boston Pops on piccolo for a Fourth of July concert.

Across 237 days, the crew ran dozens of experiments alongside the maintenance work. NASA says the research included studies of pneumonia-causing bacteria, blood flow in spaceflight, stem cell production for cell-based therapies, crystal growth in microgravity, bone loss, and showing that IV fluids can be made on demand for future missions — work the agency frames as risk reduction for human exploration of the Moon and Mars. There was lighter fare too: the crew threw a dance party and held regular cooking demonstrations, while Hathaway groomed a naval-aviator mustache that ground controllers grew in solidarity, per the Associated Press.

Crew-12's replacements, the four-person Crew-13, arrived at the station on Oct. 1 in under eight hours after launch — the quickest ISS trip ever by an American spacecraft, per space.com, after propulsion issues on the Dragon "Grace" pushed their launch from Sept. 12 and gave Crew-12 extra weeks in orbit. The returning astronauts will fly to Houston and begin a 45-day postflight conditioning process to readapt to gravity. NASA and SpaceX discussed the mission Thursday and are targeting Oct. 13 for the CRS-35 cargo launch, carrying over 6,000 pounds including the last of a series of solar panel additions and fresh fruit, according to the Associated Press.