The Dragon Freedom spacecraft with
Italian Air Force Colonel Walter Villadei splashed down in
waters off Florida's Daytona Beach beach on Friday, bringing the
Ax-3 mission to a conclusion.
The Ax-3 crew, also made up of Sweden's Marcus Wandt, Alper
GezeravcÕ from Turkey and Michael López-Alegría, a dual
US-Spanish citizen, came back to Earth 47 hours after undocking
from the International Space Station, where they had been for 18
days.
Villadei is the eighth Italian to have been in space.
During this time, 56 experiments and space activities were done
by the four astronauts during the Ax-3 mission.
The partially reusable Dragon spacecraft is operated by Axiom
Space and Ax-3 was the third private flight to reach the ISS.
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