— Axiom-4 astronauts on SpaceX Crew Dragon welcomed aboard International Space Station (video) The spacecraft will now execute a series of departure burns to move away from the @Space_Station. Dragon will reenter the Earth's atmosphere and splash down in ~22.5 hours off the coast of California pic.twitter.com/5Wmqr3f63ZJuly 14, 2025 Ax-4's splashdown this morning followed about 22.5 hours on orbit after their departure from the ISS. After nearly a full day flying their return trajectory, the crew's final minutes before splashdown passed relatively quickly. Grace began its atmospheric descent at approximately 5:18 a.m. EDT (0918 GMT; locally, 2:18 am PT). Having survived the char of the most unforgiving layers of Earth's upper atmosphere, the spacecraft's drogue parachutes deployed to stabilize its plummet. Shortly thereafter, the Dragon's four main chutes unfolded to slow the capsule's descent even further. A night vision view of a SpaceX Dragon Crew spacecraft returning to Earth. (Image credit: SpaceX) The Ax-4 spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, where it was met by the SpaceX Dragon recovery vessel "Shannon." Once safely hoisted aboard "Shannon," the Ax-4 crew will disembark Grace to begin acclimating to Earth's gravity once again. This is only SpaceX's second West Coast crew recovery, after the Crew-9 mission to the ISS came down this past March. SpaceX has shifted permanently Pacific Ocean spacecraft recoveries to avoid possible instances of pieces of Dragon's trunk surviving atmospheric reentry and crashing back to Earth, which were reported during some Atlantic Ocean and Gulf returns. The empty space station docking port left behind after Ax-4's undocking won't remain so for long. The next astronauts launching to the ISS are slated for liftoff no earlier than July 31. That mission, SpaceX's Crew-11, will launch a crew rotation for NASA that's expected to last between six and eight months. Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.