Four astronauts home from space station after splashdown

AN INTERNATIONAL crew of four astronauts is back home on Earth at the weekend after nearly five months aboard the International Space Station, returning safely in a SpaceX capsule.

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The spacecraft carrying US astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov splashed down off California's coast at 8.44am.

Their return marks the end of the 10th crew rotation mission to the space station under Nasa’s Commercial Crew Program, which was created to succeed the Space Shuttle era by partnering with private industry.

The Dragon capsule of billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX company detached from the International Space Station (ISS) last week.

When these capsules reenter Earth’s atmosphere, they heat up to 1 925 degrees Celsius, according to Nasa.

Atmospheric reentry - then the deployment of huge parachutes when the capsule gets closer to Earth - slows its speed from 28 100km per hour to just 25km per hour.