ISS astronauts return to Earth in SpaceX capsule

The SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour capsule splashed down off the coast of Florida late Monday carrying four astronauts who had spent the last six months on the International Space Station.

The "Crew-2" astronauts conducted hundreds of experiments and helped upgrade the station's solar panels.

The capsule, dubbed "Endeavour", and undocked from the ISS at 2:05 pm (19:05 GMT Monday), NASA announced.

It landed in the Gulf of Mexico at 10:33 pm US Eastern Time (03:33 GMT Tuesday), marking the end of the "Crew-2" mission.

A boat dubbed the "Dragon's Nest," then lifted the capsule out of the water, for the astronauts to be brought back to land via helicopter.

"The Crew-2 astronauts and Dragon spent 199 days in orbit, the first US spacecraft to reach that milestone," SpaceX tweeted.

Bad weather causes delay

The crew included Spacecraft commander Shane Kimbrough and NASA's Megan McArthur, France's Thomas Pesquet, and Japan's Akihiko Hoshide.

Their departure from the space station was also delayed a day by high winds.

Unfavorable weather conditions and what NASA called a "minor medical issue" also pushed back the launch of the next set of astronauts. The Crew-3 mission is now set to launch Wednesday.

As a result, the four astronauts left the Space Station before the replacement team arrived to take over.

Broken toilet

The crew faced one final challenge on their journey back to Earth.

The toilet on board the SpaceX capsule was broken, forcing the astronauts to wear diapers for their 10-hour return trip.

A problem was detected with the capsule's waste management system, cutting off the astronauts' access to a toilet from the time the hatch closed.

"Of course, that's sub-optimal, but we're prepared to manage," NASA's McArthur said at a press conference ahead of the departure.

"Space flight is full of lots of little challenges, this is just one more that we'll encounter and take care of in our mission."

adi/rt (AFP, dpa)