Intro after an eventful trip filled with space walks live music and much more the polaron crew has returned to Earth this happened very early this morning after a scheduled deorbit burn and eventual Earth re-entry the crew splashed down before teams at SpaceX made contact open the hatch and officially completed the six day Mission leading up to the re-entry process there was quite a bit of prep to ensure everything went smoothly here I'll go more in depth into dragon's return some of the final in space activities performed by the crew what to expect in the future and more Dragon Splashes Down yesterday SpaceX confirmed that the polaron astronauts were set to return to Earth and splash down off the coast of Florida on Sunday September 15th at 3:36 a.m. ET the night before on the 14th the crew completed some of the final operations in preparation for re-entry specifically on the flight day five update SpaceX was quoted saying before settling in for their last sleep period of the mission the crew took some time to connect with their families and begin preparing dragon's cabin for re-entry and splash down looking at an image of the splash down trajectory and specific Landing site you can see it's just west of Florida within the Gulf of Mexico in relation SpaceX said SpaceX teams recently selected this new splash down location after nearly two weeks of launch delays due to unfavorable weather forecast for each of dragon's seven return sites off the coast of Florida they went on to say this location adds greater Geographic diversity for Dragons return and helps increase the odds of having acceptable return weather forecasts for Missions such as polaron they said in other words leading up to the launch of polaron there were quite a few delays not necessarily because of the weather when launching the rocket but instead the future forecasted weather when the capsule would return this has to do with the fact that the Dragon capsule needs to return When the mission timeline is up and can't just stay like a capsule docked with the ISS could fortunately the more Landing options there are the better chances that one of them has good weather for a return focusing back on the return about an hour before splash down SpaceX tweeted saying dragon's trunk has been jettison and the deorbit burn will begin soon normally dragon's trunk not only carries unpressurized cargo but also supports the spacecraft during Ascent one half of the trunk is covered in solar panels that provide Power to Dragon during flight and while on station the trunk remains attached to Dragon until shortly before re-entry into Earth atmosphere around that time they shared a video of Dragon as it was passing over Australia at this point the nose Cen was still open and preparing to be closed at 3:00 a.m. ET dragon's do orbit burn was completed and its nose cone was closed they included a video of that process where you could see both the trunk closing and the entire capsule turning the dragon spacecraft is equipped with 16 Draco thrusters used to orient the spacecraft during the mission including ae/ par Maneuvers orbit adjustment and attitude control each Draco Thruster is capable of generating 90 pounds of force in the vacuum of space at this point the live stream hosts were quoted saying well this has been going on the vehicle has initiated the Nitro suit Purge this helped keep our crew members cool and comfortable during re-entry not long after the re-entry process had begun and we got some incredible views of the capsule as it made its way back toward Earth the droke parachutes which deploy first use the GPS and deploying the capsule is around 40 km in altitude eventually that process occurred slowing the dragon and Cru significantly soon after the four main parachutes deployed and slowly opened up bringing the capsule to a safe speed for splash down only a few minutes after the spacecraft had made contact with the water recovery Crews were surrounding the capsule and Shining lights on it as it was Pitch Black they then connected the spacecraft and lifted it onto the recovery vessel before opening the hatch at that point SpaceX tweeted saying dragon and the plist daon crew splashed down off the coast of Florida completing the plis program's first human space flight mission in an official statement SpaceX said the player Stone crew combined their expertise knowledge and passion for space flight to further human space exploration this was the first human space flight for Mission pilot kit potit Mission specialist Sarah Gillis and Mission specialist and medical officer Anna Mina Mission Commander Jared isaacman previously flew to space's commander of inspiration 4 this was also the first time two SpaceX employees were a part of a human space flight crewp providing valuable insight to Future missions on the road and making life multiplanetary they said Mission Recap well only 6 days long the amount of Science and different Milestones completed was quite impressive on flight day four for example SpaceX was quoted saying after an exciting and historic spacewalk on Thursday September 12th the crew spent the majority of their flight day four focused on science and research PL ston partnered with 31 institutions from across the world to create a robust and diverse science research portfolio throughout their time and space a few of the studies the crew has focused on since arriving on orbit have included assessing the effects of microgravity on the human Airway and Venus system in addition to examining how Blood Flow Restriction Alters blood flow in space using ultrasound and smart watches they went on to say as humans become a space fairing civilization having the proper support system in the event of medical emergencies is key the polaron crew tested out Tempest Pro a commercial off-the-shelf device that can collect and integrate measurements of Health including blood pressure heart rate respiration rate temperature and more along with ultrasound imaging capabilities the crew was able to use it to assess and compare Vital sign data collected pre-flight to that collected during their time on order Orbit on the fourth day the crew also continued to test and demonstrate starlink aboard Dragon one of the biggest tests of connectivity includes the ability to quickly share files earlier in the week the crew recorded Mission specialist Sarah Gillis playing Ray's Theme by John Williams on the violin once complete the crew successfully sent the files down to earth over Starling to help create the special music event named Harmony of resilience they said this led to the final full day or flight day five here they mention that throughout the day the crew continued to test starlink including a 40 plus minute uninterrupted video call with SpaceX teams back on Earth which took place as Dragon orbited across the US Eastern Seaboard the Atlantic Ocean and the Cape of Good Hope they also mentioned that the startling satellite for the event maintained its laser link during 16 Draco Thruster firings looking at the mission as a whole even before all this not long after launch the mission took advantage of Falcon 9 and the dragon's maximum performance flying higher than any dragon mission to date and endeavoring to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown they confirmed after that the capsule reached 1481 km the highest Earth orbit ever flown since the Apollo program orbiting through portions of the Van Allen radiation belt player Dawn conducted research with the aim of better understanding the effects of space flight and space radiation on human health we then saw arguably the most notable Mission Milestone with The Space Walk at approximately 700 km above the Earth the crew attempted the first ever commercial extra vehicular activity or Eva with SpaceX designed Eva space suits upgraded from the current intra vehicular or Iva suit SpaceX was quoted saying building a base on the moon and a city on Mars will acquire thousands of space suits the de elent of this suit and the execution of the Eva will be important steps toward a scalable design for space suits on future long duration missions during the actual Space Walk the company clarified that there were three main suit Mobility tests meant to test overall hand body control vertical movement with Skywalker and foot restraint in total they conducted just about 36 research studies and experiments from 31 partner institutions designed to advance both human health on Earth and during long duration space flight and also tested starlink laser based Communications and space in terms of what to expect in the future there are very likely more polaron missions coming in reality this was the first of three missions isaacman paid for he mentioned that the final mission would be the first crude launch of Starship as for the next mission it's not fully clear at this point before this mission isaacman was quoted saying we're going to learn an awful lot from polaron it is Big very ambitious objectives we'll come back with a lot of data that's what will ultimately inform the second mission he said considering how well this initial Mission went they definitely will try something new in the future and continue to launch ambitious poon missions as for a future Polaris Dawn Starship launch there's still is quite a bit of work left as the company Works to get approved for her fifth flight something we will have to keep an eye on going forward after a very busy Six-Day mission that featured the first private spacewalk in a high altitude the player Stone crew splashed down earli this morning the re-entry process went smoothly and now SpaceX will work to gather all the data from the mission work toward a second player Dawn launch in the future we will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry thank you very much for watching