Crew-12 Is Home After 237 Days in Space, and Sophie Adenot Now Holds Europe's Record

After nearly eight months away, four space travellers are back on solid ground. NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 mission ended on October 8, 2026, when the Crew Dragon capsule Freedom parachuted into the Pacific Ocean off Los Angeles, bringing home Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, Sophie Adenot, and Andrey Fedyaev.

Their mission lasted 237 days, 235 of them aboard the International Space Station. In that time the crew travelled more than 100 million miles and circled Earth more than 3,792 times. Recovery teams lifted the capsule onto a ship, and after medical checks the crew flew to shore and on to NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

A record for Europe

For France's Sophie Adenot, on her first spaceflight, the mission set a milestone: the longest continuous stay in space by any European Space Agency astronaut. Her 237 days beat the 201 days set by Italy's Luca Parmitano in 2019-20.

NASA's Jessica Meir, on her second flight, added four spacewalks during the mission, bringing her career total to seven. Jack Hathaway was also flying for the first time, while Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev completed his second mission.

Back to gravity

The splashdown was delayed by a few days because of bad weather in the recovery zone; the crew had been ready to leave as early as October 5. Now the hard part begins on the ground: after months of weightlessness, muscles and bones weaken and balance takes time to return. The crew will spend about 45 days in a reconditioning programme to readjust to gravity.

During their stay, Crew-12 worked on hundreds of experiments in biology, medicine and technology that can only be done in orbit, research that helps prepare for longer missions to the Moon and Mars, and that often finds uses back on Earth.