Splashdown! SpaceX Polaris Dawn crew back on Earth after spacewalk mission

uh and this you can see on your screen is the first ground view of the Dragon capsule making its way back entering the Earth's atmosphere I love this view uh it's a it's it's so fun to watch this I can only imagine what it would be like to watch it with our own eyes um this thermal view uh in particular is really cool because you can you can see the trail behind it oh that is so so awesome there's four humans inside of that capsule right now now once again we are in the anticipated Communications blackout period um basically there is an envelope of ionized air around the spacecraft and it blocks radio signals from reaching Dragon so this basically plasma field around it prohibits us from commanding the vehicle or from communicating with the crew uh so this anticipated blackout period lasts about seven minutes so uh we should be coming out of it here in about the next minute or so we will probably start to hear uh the SpaceX core begin to reach out to the Dragon capsule uh just trying to hail them or we might even hear from uh the polaron crew first that's an incredible view from the recovery ship uh stationed out in the water that is a sight to see for the people that are watching this live it's not a comet it is just the player Don crew coming back to Earth wow that is an amazing view once again we expect this uh blackout period to end in about a minute another view of the Dragon SpaceX com check I have you lbby CER how great loud and clear Jared expect automated shoot deployment incredible views incredible comms we have regained Communications with the polaron crew this is a drone circling the recovery vessel and that little white dot I should start the big white dot on the right obviously the moon the little white dot there in the center of your screen is the dragon resilience vehicle making its way its final few kilometers back down to planet Earth after spending 5 days in orbit wow just some epic views tonight you can hear the crowd here in Hawthorne getting excited we've confirmed that we have comms with the crew Dragon SpaceX GPS converged expect nominal altitude for Dro shoot deoy C that SpaceX we show the same in [Music] tracking and the crew is still traveling very quickly right now as they're coming back through the Earth's atmosphere but as you heard the drug shoots should be deploying here shortly and that's going to slow them down significantly yeah we we expect those to deploy in about 90 seconds and as we heard in those comms it's triggered by GPS so the Dragon capsule using that um that that GPS will automatically know exactly when to deploy it and that happens around 40 kilm once the drug parachutes deploy about a minute after that we'll see the main parachutes and it's pretty incredible that we only uh we can see seat rotation now underway this helps put the crew in a uh more ergonomic position in anticipation of for Dr window copy wordon should see those shoots deploy here shortly and you can see the crew bracing as instructed for the change in velocity standing by for deployment of the drog parachutes these will help bring the vehicle down from about 350 mph when they deploy down to about 119 mph when the main parachutes deploy there we can see that the dro shoots have successfully deployed [Applause] it's a great thermal image and that view is from the actual Basin where those drog parachutes are located Dragon SpaceX visual on two healthy droges copy that SpaceX we show the same these drog parachutes help to stabilize the Dragon capsule and get it into the right orientation before those main parachutes uh pop out as well as providing that initial deceleration this is such a great thermal shot of the the Dragon capsule you can see it turning a little bit with the drug parachutes and there are the four main shoots now deployed they'll slowly open up to their full uh deployment here in just a few seconds incredible views of the Polaris Dawn crew returning to Earth after 5 days in Earth's orbit the crowd here at Mission Control in Hawthorne [Applause] cheering on four names and descent rate nominal it's a beautiful sight to see SP actually show the same 1,000 Cy 1,000 beautiful sight to see those four healthy main parachutes so great now in about two minutes we expect our splash down to occur and you may hear the crew in the core talking their uh communicating about their altitude as they make their way back down to earth we should start yeah there it is so we should start to hear an are hearing uh our commander Jared isaacman call out the altitude as they Ascend to the ocean's surface we can see the Polaris Dawn crew nestled in their seats there on the left hand side of your screen as they anticipate their splash down CB six you can see the difference in velocity this is a lot gentler than just a few minutes ago that dragon is coming back down to earth absolutely these main parachutes deploy at about 119 mph and help slow the Dragon capsule down to about 15 milph when it makes contact with the ocean can also see that the capsule is now the capsule is now stabilized it's no longer spinning like we saw with the drug parachutes 200 we're bracing copy 200 embraced Racing for splash down that will be the final call we hear from Jared until contact with the ocean surface standing by for a splash down of the polaron crew and there you can cop as you can see on your screen and by the cheers behind us the Polaris Dawn crew has successfully splashed down welcome back to planet Earth pois Dawn SpaceX recovery team now moving into place to begin the process of strapping the Dragon capsule up with the necessary uh rigging in order to lift it onto the recovery vessel