SpaceX returned two astronauts to earth on Sunday in the final stages of a historic mission it began nine weeks ago that could open the way to the full commercialisation of human space flight.
The test mission, undertaken with Nasa, took astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley to the International Space Station on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the first time a private company had taken humans into space.
The two returned to a splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico at 2.48pm local time. As the capsule bobbed on a calm ocean, they were radioed a greeting familiar to plane passengers everywhere: “Welcome back to planet Earth. Thanks for flying SpaceX.”