The first all-private astronaut team ever to fly aboard the International Space Station (ISS) departed the orbiting outpost on Sunday to begin a descent back to Earth, capping a two-week science mission hailed as a milestone in commercial spaceflight.
A SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying the four-man team from the Houston-based startup company Axiom Space undocked from the ISS at about 9:10 p.m. EDT (01:10 GMT Monday) to embark on a 16-hour return flight, a live NASA webcast showed.
The Axiom astronauts, garbed in their helmeted white-and-black spacesuits, were seen strapped into the crew cabin shortly before the spacecraft separated from the station, orbiting some 420 kilometers above Earth. A couple of brief rocket thrusts then pushed the capsule safely clear of the ISS.