Donald Trump congratulated SpaceX on Crew-12’s return from the International Space Station and said he had watched the splashdown while waiting for Elon Musk at the White House.
Trump joked that Musk might not have attended the meeting if the mission had gone badly. “I think he would not be here,” the president said at a ceremony where he presented innovation awards to business executives. Musk was introduced first among the recipients.
Crew-12, which included Russian cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, undocked from the ISS above northern Cuba before splashing down off the California coast. The station was about 421 kilometers above Earth at the time.
The crew had spent nearly eight months in orbit after arriving at the station in mid-February. NASA confirmed the crew’s return on October 8.