Freedom hit all of its marks during its first space mission.
"That's exactly how we like it," Walker added."The Freedom vehicle performed beautifully the whole time, and especially today on on the day of its return."rocket on April 27, carrying NASA astronauts Kjell Lindgren, Bob Hines and Jessica Watkins and the European Space Agency's Samantha Cristoforetti toward the orbiting lab.
Freedom arrived at the ISS that same day, and its crewmembers quickly got to work. The Crew-4 astronauts completed"over 250 investigations in areas of human research technology demonstrations that we'll need for exploration, as well as completing some of our," Joel Montalbano, NASA's ISS program manager, said during Friday evening's news conference.
The spaceflyers' journey back to Earth Friday was notable as well, and not just for its smoothness: Freedom splashed down less than five hours after undocking from the ISS. "This was actually the fastest return we've done on a crew mission — on any mission — to date," Walker said.
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