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A larger recovery ship will pull the capsule out of the water. The hatch is then opened for the four astronauts to get out.
After medical checks, the astronauts will head to shore. From there, they will fly to Houston. The capsule will be taken to Cape Canaveral, where it will be refurbished for another flight to space.
What has changed at NASA since the astronauts left Earth?
NASA is about to have a new boss.
When Crew-1 blasted off in November, Donald J. Trump was president and NASA was led by Jim Bridenstine, a former Republican congressman from Oklahoma.
In the time since, President Biden was sworn in and has begun installing his team in the nation’s space agency. He nominated Bill Nelson, the former Democratic senator from Florida, to be the agency’s administrator. On Thursday, the Senate confirmed his appointment by a unanimous voice vote, and Vice President Kamala Harris will swear him in on Monday morning.
Steve Jurczyk, who has been serving as acting administrator, will return to his role as associate administrator, the number three position at NASA. Pam Melroy, a former space shuttle commander, has been nominated to be Mr. Nelson’s deputy.
The agency also gave SpaceX an important new task this month when it awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to build the lander that NASA will use to take astronauts back to the surface of the moon. The company will adapt a giant rocket called Starship that SpaceX has been developing for trips to Mars.
Currently, the schedule for the lunar program, Artemis, has astronauts landing on the moon in 2024, a timetable that is widely regarded as unlikely, especially as Congress has not provided as much money for the development of lunar landers as NASA has requested. Although the agency had planned to award contracts to more than one company, it selected only SpaceX. That decision prompted other bidders, Jeff Bezos’s company, Blue Origin and Dynetics of Huntsville, Ala., to challenge the award with. NASA has now instructed SpaceX to stop work on the lunar lander until the Government Accountability Office resolves the protests.
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