SpaceX brings 4 astronauts home, then launches 53 satellites

CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA. >> SpaceX brought four astronauts home with a midnight splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico on Friday, capping the busiest stretch yet for Elon Musk's taxi service.

The three U.S. astronauts and one German in the capsule were bobbing off the Florida coast, near Tampa, less than 24 hours after leaving the International Space Station. NASA expected to have them back in Houston later in the morning.

“That was a great ride,” said Raja Chari, the capsule commander. As for the reintroduction to gravity, he noted: “Only one complaint. These water bottles are super heavy.”

NASA's Chari, Tom

Marshburn and Kayla Barron, and the European Space Agency's Matthias Maurer, were out of the capsule within an hour of splashdown, waving and giving thumbs-up as they were hustled away on rolling chaises for medical checks.

Their departure from the space station Thursday was bittersweet, as they embraced the seven astronauts remaining there.

“It's the end of a sixmonth mission, but I think the space dream lives on,” Maurer said.

SpaceX brought up their U.S. and Italian replacements last week, after completing a charter trip to the station for a trio of businessmen earlier in April.

That amounts to two crew launches and two splashdowns in barely a month. Musk's company has now launched 26 people into orbit in less than two years, since it started ferrying astronauts for NASA. Eight of those 26 were space tourists.

SpaceX's William Gerstenmaier, a vice president, acknowledges it's “a pretty exciting time.”

Barely five hours after splashdown, the company founded by Musk in 2002 launched a fresh batch of its own internet satellites known as Starlinks from Cape Canaveral. There were 53 of the mini flat-panel satellites in this predawn load.

“Satellites are nice, but flying people are a little special and a little bit different, and the team here sure understands that,” he told reporters. “There's a sense of relief and and a sense of accomplishment that you know you've done something good.”