Crew Crew-8 It will return to Earth via parachute descent this Friday after more than seven months in space, and the final conditions of the launch will depend on future weather forecasts. As the ISS crew prepares to leave docking, other members are participating in ongoing space exploration.

heads of mission NASA And SpaceX We plan to start the return journey of the Dragon Endeavor spacecraft with four members Crew-8 On Wednesday, October 23. As weather conditions improve off Florida’s coast, officials await the final weather report, expected to be released early Wednesday, before confirming the crew’s docking time and landing location.

crew members Crew-8 NASA astronauts Matthew Dominik, Mike Barratt, Jeanette Epps and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleksandr Grebenkin are completing a seven-and-a-half-month research mission that began with their launch to Dragon on March 3. Dominique will fly the spacecraft, with Barratt as pilot and Epps and Grebenkin as mission experts, when they return to Earth for an expected parachute landing on Friday. The exact time and location of the landing are still being determined.

Returning home, the four awoke again late Tuesday, altering their sleep to accommodate disconnected after-hours activities. Expedition 72 Commander Suni Williams and Flight Engineers Butch Wilmore, Don Petit and Nick Hague, all NASA astronauts, stayed up late as they prepared to assist Crew 8 and prepare the International Space Station for Dragon docking.

The three remaining astronauts in the orbital laboratory, flight engineers Oleksiy Ovchinin, Ivan Wagner and Oleksandr Gorbunov, continued their normal schedules Tuesday, focusing on space science and orbital maintenance. In the morning, Ovchynin and Wagner took turns wearing sensors that measured breathing rates.

After that, Ovchinin observed the consequences of natural and anthropogenic impacts on the Earth with the help of a hyperspectrometer, and Wagner packed the garbage inside the cargo ship Progress 88. Gorbunov attached sensors to himself for 24-hour pulse and blood pressure measurement, then maintained the ventilation components in the Nauka science module.