After six months on the International Space Station, NASA’s Crew-3 mission returned to Earth on Friday.

NASA astronauts Kayla Barron, Raja Chari, and Tom Marshburn, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer, de-docked from the orbiting laboratory the day before.

At 12:43 a.m., they splashed down off the coast of Florida after a 23.5-hour trek (0443 GMT).

“Welcome home, on behalf of the whole SpaceX team,” a SpaceX spokesperson remarked to the crew as the capsule touched down.

They left behind one Italian astronaut, three American astronauts, and three Russian cosmonauts from Crew-4. Marshburn passed up management of the station to Russian Oleg Artemyev before departing.

Crew-3 conducted hundreds of scientific experiments throughout their journey, including growing chiles in space to improve understanding of producing crops on long-term missions, investigating how concrete hardens in space, and Earth monitoring.

On Thursday, Crew-3 leader Chari tweeted, “Every day on @Space Station is #EarthDay for @NASA Astronauts because we observe how thin the precious veil that shields all we know & love as a human species is,”

“Hopefully, @NASA research will aid in the purifying of water and the decrease of carbon dioxide emissions, but the rest is up to us.”

On Twitter on Thursday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz wished Maurer, the 12th German in space, a “nice and safe voyage back with a comfortable landing,” praising him for “all the new discoveries in space that are so vital for us here on Earth.”

Crew-3’s mission took place at a time when commercial space is becoming increasingly crowded.

They greeted a private crew of three affluent businessmen who arrived and left on another SpaceX Crew Dragon, as well as a Japanese mission that travelled to the Russian section on a Soyuz plane.

The ISS is currently waiting to dock with an uncrewed Boeing Starliner spacecraft, which is scheduled to launch on May 19 from Florida.

NASA is seeking certification from a second business to transport men to the Low Earth Orbit zone of space, allowing it to focus on developing its super heavy space launch system (SLS) rocket for trips to the Moon and, eventually, Mars.

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