Watch Andreas return to Earth

After undocking from Harmony’s zenith-facing port of the International Space Station, Crew-7 will perform a series of burns to first distance the Crew Dragon from the Space Station and then re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. The Dragon’s heat shield provides the protection from the hot plasma formed in front of the capsule while coming down through the atmosphere. The spacecraft faces extreme heat during re-entry – as much as 1600 °C.

Andreas and the crew are planned to splash down off the coast of Florida on 12 March 2024 at 09:35 GMT/10:35 CET, where they will be picked up by a SpaceX recovery team and return to solid ground for the first time in six months.

Pilot and commander

Andreas Mogensen was launched into orbit on 26 August 2023 for his first long-duration mission, together with NASA astronaut Jasmin Moghbeli, JAXA astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov on the Dragon Endurance spacecraft. Andreas was the first non-US astronaut to serve as a pilot on the Dragon, a role Andreas was grateful to be assigned to. “It is an honour to be the pilot of Crew Dragon, with our international partners showing their trust in ESA and my work,” he said.  

After a month onboard, Andreas became the commander of the International Space Station, taking over from Sergei Prokopyev. On 1 February 2024, he became the longest-serving European commander, surpassing Luca Parmitano’s record from 2020. He passed on the responsibilities to Oleg Kononenko on 10 March 2024, before leaving for return to Earth.

Science all the way

During his six-month mission to the International Space Station, Andreas conducted more than 30 Europeans experiments.  He recently installed the first metal 3D printer in the Columbus module to test how 3D printing in metal will perform in microgravity, leading the way for printing tool and spare parts in space in the future.

Andreas also spent time in the Cupola, the Space Station’s window to the world, taking pictures of the new Moon in the Earthshine experiment, helping scientists understand more about Earth’s climate, and also looking down at Earth for thunder clouds and rare lightning phenomena with the Thor Davis experiment.

Visit from a fellow Scandinavian

An important time during the Huginn mission was when the Axiom Mission3 crew came to the Space Station, with ESA project astronaut and fellow Scandinavian Marcus Wandt on his Muninn mission.

The two mission names, Huginn and Muninn, originate from the ravens of the god Odin in Norse mythology. The myth says that the ravens flew out to gather information for Odin and came back every evening to tell all about what had happened in the world. Inspired by this story, Andreas felt the name fitted his mission, going above Earth and telling us all about what he had seen.

Tune in to see the undocking of Andreas and Crew-7 on the 11 March 2024 at 13:15 GMT/14:15 CET and the splash down on 12 March 2024 at 09:35 GMT/10:35 CET on ESA WebTV.

Times are subject to change.