Historic SpaceX “amateur” flight successfully returns to earth

The Four amateur astronauts who orbited in a Space-X capsule for three days have touched down back on Earth

The crew onboard are the first private, all-civilian team ever to go to space.

The Inspiration4 crew left on a SpaceX capsule known as Crew Dragon, from Florida on Wednesday, and landed off the state’s coast after 7 PM local time on Saturday.

The reentry process back to earth involved the Crew Dragon spacecraft diving back into the Earth’s thick atmosphere. That process heats the exterior of the spacecraft up to 3,5000 degrees fahrenheit.

What makes the mission different:

Though the team onboard are not the first tourists to travel to orbit, their mission, called Inspiration4, what makes the mission so notable is that it did not involve a stay at the International Space Station under the tutelage of professional astronauts, as previous missions involving space tourists have.

Instead, the four spaceflight novices have spent the past two days free-flying aboard their 13-foot-wide capsule on their own at about a 563 kilometre altitude — 160 kilometres higher than where the space station is, and higher than any human has flown to in decades.