Turkish astronaut leaves International Space Station

ISTANBUL

After spending an extra four days in space because of stormy weather near Florida, the first all-European private astronaut mission, including fist Turkish astronaut Alper Gezeravcı, departed from the International Space Station (ISS) on Feb. 7, beginning their two-day journey back to Earth.

The crew was originally scheduled to come home on Feb. 3, but SpaceX announced that the crew of four would spend additional days in space due to poor weather conditions this week in the recovery zone off Florida.

The SpaceX Dragon capsule pushed itself away from the station yesterday at 2:20 p.m. GMT as it was over the South Pacific Ocean.

The capsule will return the astronaut crew and its cargo safely to Earth, targeting a splashdown off the coast of Daytona, Florida, at approximately 13:30 p.m. GMT tomorrow.

Following the landing, Türkiye’s first astronaut Gezeravcı will first go to a NASA center where he will be kept under observation for health checks before returning to Türkiye in around a week. Upon his eagerly awaited return, Gezeravcı will visit schools and universities to share the findings of the experiments he performed in space with academicians and students.

Gezeravcı conducted 13 experiments in space during his two-week mission aboard the ISS.