WASHINGTON: Four astronauts left the International Space Station on Saturday aboard a SpaceX vessel, after more than 160 days in space which will culminate in a splash landing off the Florida coast.
The Crew Dragon capsule undocked from the ISS as scheduled at 8:35 p.m. (0035 Sunday GMT). With the flight back to Earth expected to take six-and-a-half hours, the crew was scheduled to splash down in the dark of night off Panama City, Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico at 2:57 am.
“Dragon separation visually confirmed,” a NASA commentator said after two sets of six hooks tying the capsule to the ISS retracted.
The capsule then fired a series of short bursts with its thrusters to gently ease away from the ISS.
NASA livestream footage showed the Crew Dragon capsule moving off into the dark as it began its journey back to Earth, its rear engines lighting up in small flashes.
Seven astronauts remained on the ISS including a new crew of four who arrived on a different SpaceX craft last week.
“Thanks for your hospitality,” Michael Hopkins, one of the departing US astronauts, said as the capsule moved away. “We’ll see you back on Earth.”
NASA and SpaceX have alternative splash down sites ready, aside from Panama City, if need be.
“We have been practicing to recover the crews day or night,” Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew program manager, said shortly before the capsule’s departure.
“The ships have lots of lighting,” helped by “good moonlight,” he said, adding that weather conditions were excellent, with calm seas.
SpaceX boats are expected to reach the capsule about 10 minutes after splashdown.
Astronauts Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi went to space last November as the crew on the first fully operational mission to the ISS aboard a vehicle made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has become NASA’s favored commercial transportation partner.
Prior to that, two American astronauts made a test mission to the ISS in May and stayed for two months.
That was the first launch to the ISS from US soil since the end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011. It was also the first crewed mission run by a private company, as opposed to NASA.
Until then US astronauts had caught rides to the ISS aboard Russian spacecraft.
Astronauts leave ISS, begin return journey to Earth on SpaceX craft
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Astronauts leave ISS, begin return journey to Earth on SpaceX craft
- Astronauts Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi went to space last November as the crew on the first fully operational mission to the ISS aboard a vehicle made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX
US judge blocks Trump plans to end of deportation protections for South Sudanese migrants
- Kelley issued the order after four migrants from South Sudan along with African Communities Together, a non-profit group, sued
BOSTON: A federal judge on Tuesday blocked plans by US President Donald Trump’s administration to end temporary protections from deportation that had been granted to hundreds of South Sudanese nationals living in the United States.
US District Judge Angel Kelley in Boston granted an emergency request by several South Sudanese nationals and an immigrant rights group to prevent the temporary protected status they had been granted from expiring as planned after January 5.
The ruling is a temporary victory for immigrant advocates and a setback for the Trump administration’s broader effort to curtail the humanitarian program. It is the latest in a series of legal challenges to the administration’s moves to end similar protections for nationals from several other countries, including Syria, Venezuela, Haiti and Nicaragua.
Kelley issued the order after four migrants from South Sudan along with African Communities Together, a non-profit group, sued. The lawsuit alleged that action by the US Department of Homeland Security was unlawful and would expose them to being deported to a country facing a series of humanitarian crises.
Kelley, who was appointed by Democratic former President Joe Biden, issued an administrative stay that temporarily blocks the policy pending further litigation.
She wrote that allowing it to take effect before the courts had time to consider the case’s merits “would result in an immediate impact on the South Sudanese nationals, stripping current beneficiaries of lawful status, which could imminently result in their deportation.”
Homeland Security Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the judge’s ruling ignored Trump’s constitutional and statutory authority and that the temporary protected status extended to South Sudanese nationals “was never intended to be a de facto asylum program.”
Conflict has ravaged South Sudan since it won independence from Sudan in 2011. Fighting has persisted in much of the country since a five-year civil war that killed an estimated 400,000 people ended in 2018. The US State Department advises citizens not to travel there.
The United States began designating South Sudan for temporary protected status, or TPS, in 2011.
That status is available to people whose home countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflicts or other extraordinary events. It provides eligible migrants with work authorization and temporary protection from deportation.
About 232 South Sudanese nationals have been beneficiaries of TPS and have found refuge in the United States, and another 73 have pending applications, according to the lawsuit.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem published a notice on November 5 terminating TPS for South Sudan, saying the country no longer met the conditions for the designation.
The lawsuit argues the agency’s action violated the statute governing the TPS program, ignored the dire humanitarian conditions that remain in South Sudan, and was motivated by discrimination against migrants who are not white in violation of the US Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.
“The singular aim of this mass deportation agenda is to remove as many Black and Brown immigrants from this country as quickly and as cruelly as possible,” Diana Konate, deputy executive director of policy and advocacy at African Communities Together, said in a statement.
