TULSA, Okla. — NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 aboard the Dragon spacecraft re-entered Earth’s atmosphere early Tuesday morning, and was visible in the Tulsa sky.
After a six month mission on the International Space Station, the four man crew made their descent from space and splashed into the Gulf of Mexico a little after 5:30 local time. The capsule passing through the Midwest and southern parts of the country is not typical for these missions.
“Most of the time, these space crafts are re-entering the atmosphere closer to the coast, usually they’re recovered either in the Gulf of Mexico, or in the Atlantic Ocean, so usually that puts us out of the path,” said Bryan Kyle, Planetarium Manager at the Tulsa Air and Space Museum. “We were about half way through it’s path, so that would be pretty much the brightest part of it.”
As the Dragon crew made their way back from space, they traveled at approximately 17,500 MPH.
Many in the Tulsa area were able to catch a glimpse of the rare event, including 2 News Oklahoma’s Meteorologist Michael Seger. He woke up early to watch the sky, and said he was impressed with what he saw.
“I don’t know the odds of having one of these re-entry’s coming right over head of where you are at any given spot on the earth, but it’s not something that you get to see very often, so getting that privilege to see that this morning was pretty cool,” said Seger.
Seger said he has never seen anything like this before.
The Crew-8 mission launched last week, and is on track to continue the work Crew-7 had been doing since August. Crew-7 was made up of NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Andreas Mogensen, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov.
They performed a number of experiments through their journey in space, including how the human body reacts to a number of things without gravity. They looked at immune system changes in space and simulated exercise in zero-gravity. They even grew plants while on board the Dragon capsule.
In the event that someone may have missed the event, Kyle said there may soon be more chances to see something similar in the Tulsa sky.
“This is the 7th of the Crew Dragon missions to the International Space Station, and many many more are planned,” Kyle said. “The International Space Station is going to remain in service until at least 2030, and these missions happen roughly every six months. So there will be more opportunities, hopefully we’ll get lucky again and they’ll splash down in the same zone.”
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