Did you witness a fireball sweep across the sky on Monday evening? If that was the case, you weren't alone. Hundreds of people in New Orleans, Florida, and other states said they saw the SpaceX spacecraft reenter the atmosphere that night.
At 10:33 p.m. ET, the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour touched down safely in the Gulf of Mexico, just south of Pensacola, Florida. It left a luminous trail visible to observers underneath in the last minutes of the 199-day mission during reentry.
The capsule with four astronauts inside splashed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida, Click Orlando said. The event concluded a six-month NASA scientific mission aboard the International Space Station and a day-long voyage home.
CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA - APRIL 23: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket flies to the International Space Station after blasting off from launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on April 23, 2021 in Cape Canaveral, Florida. SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 rocket with an international crew of four astronauts in a Crew Dragon capsule to the International Space Station.
SpaceX Crew-2 Dragon Capsule Creates Streak Across Sky
Returning spacecraft, like meteors, travel at great speeds, compressing the atmosphere immediately ahead of them and causing the atmosphere to glow. The glow may be seen for several miles if the sky is clear.
"Holy crap that was awesome!" a skywatcher named Christopher of Mandeville, Louisiana, wrote on Twitter while sharing a photo of the reentry.
HOLY CRAP THAT WAS AWESOME! I wish we would’ve gone to the lake but I just couldn’t leave the house. For anyone who doesn’t know that was @SpaceX Dragon. I screwed up and hit photo and not video so a little upset but my son did get a small video I’ll put up after. @NWSNewOrleans pic.twitter.com/67agrc4mOP
— Christopher Bannan (@ulmwxr) November 9, 2021
Daily Mail said the spacecraft reached at least 17,000 miles per hour during deorbit as it dropped into the ocean. It ultimately slowed down and released parachutes to prevent it from colliding with the ground.
ALSO READ: Returning SpaceX Astronauts Now Use Diapers Due to Broken Toilet on Dragon Capsule
Since restarting human space missions from American territory this year, NASA has launched the second "operational" space station team onboard a SpaceX capsule, following a nine-year break following the termination of the US space shuttle program in 2011.
Not The First Time To Create Streak
The Endeavour capsule isn't the first SpaceX ship to return to Earth that makes a buzz. A previous Science Times report said stargazers saw SpaceX's Cargo Dragon C208-2 was seen speeding across the night sky over Georgia and Florida in September.
Following a supply voyage to the ISS, the Cargo Dragon C208-2 undocked at 9:12 a.m. ET on Thursday and splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean about 11 p.m. ET on September 30.
According to another Science Times report, residents in Florida heard a big explosion as a SpaceX Dragon 2 spacecraft successfully splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean in October. A sonic boom is created when an item moves faster than the speed of sound through the air, analogous to shock waves.
Reentering Earth's Atmosphere Sounds Like an 'Animal,' Astronauts Say
Space.com said returning astronauts have claimed that the reentry experience on Crew Dragon differs from that on the shuttle or the Soyuz. NASA astronaut Bob Behnken once remarked that the reentry sounds like an animal during his Demo-2 return on August 2, 2020. He stated that the environment produces noise, which you can hear outside the car.
Another feature that sets Crew Dragon distinct is its capacity to land on water, something NASA astronauts haven't done since the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz program. Since then, every American who has used a Soyuz spacecraft has returned to Earth, either on American territory or Kazakhstan's steppes (the main astronaut taxi for most of the past decade).
In reality, seeing any returning spaceship on American soil is still unusual, considering that SpaceX only started returning humans to Florida in 2020, after a nine-year hiatus following the end of the space shuttle program in 2011. Even seasoned journalists were taken aback by the sight of reentry.
RELATED ARTICLE: NASA Plans to Buy More Seats From Private Sectors to Ferry Astronauts To and From the International Space Station
Check out more news and information on SpaceX in Science Times.
