Ax-3 crew set to depart Space Station 'no earlier than Wednesday'

By Diyar Guldogan

WASHINGTON (AA) - SpaceX has announced that the Axiom-3 Mission is now scheduled to undock from the International Space Station by 2.05 p.m. GMT on Wednesday.

"Dragon and the Ax-3 crew are set to depart the @Space_Station no earlier than Wednesday, February 7 at 9:05 a.m. ET (1405GMT) pending weather at the splashdown locations," the private space company said Tuesday on X about the return of the crew, including Türkiye's first space traveler Alper Gezeravci, on its Dragon capsule.

After performing a series of burns to move away from the space station, Dragon will conduct multiple orbit-lowering maneuvers, jettison its trunk, and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere for splashdown off the coast of Florida, it added.

The four-person mission was launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida on Jan. 19 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The Ax-3 space mission crew docked at the ISS on Jan. 20.

Gezeravci and his three crewmates from Spain, Italy, and Sweden were responsible for carrying out more than 30 scientific experiments.