The Axiom Space 3 (Ax-3) astronauts aboard the SpaceX Dragon Freedom capsule splashed down in the Atlantic Ocean offshore from Daytona Beach Friday morning, according to SpaceX.
And some Volusia County residents, especially those near the beachside, heard the sonic boom caused when the spacecraft reentered the Earth's atmosphere.
SpaceX Dragon landing
Joe Connor, an employee at Beachside Cafe in Ormond Beach, said he was sitting outside when he heard the boom at around 8:30 a.m.
"There was a bunch of people (in the restaurant) and they didn't know what the sound was," Connor said. "They thought the building got hit or there was an earthquake or something."
Jennifer Feuer, a volunteer at the Marine Science Center in Ponce Inlet, said she was in her backyard when she heard the sound.
"We heard this big boom," Feuer said, adding she did not know the SpaceX capsule would be touching down off the area coast. "It was quite loud."
"We're just a block from the ocean, and we had our doors open, my garage was open," she said. "So it was louder than normal, because we were outside."
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Amy Tobias, also a volunteer with the center, said she heard the boom when she was in her car but did not realize what it was until a few moments later.
"When I come in to volunteer, I park in the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse parking lot," Tobias said. "I was coming through the entry gate and the same lady is there every Friday, and she was giggling when I pulled up. I said, 'What are you laughing about?' She said, 'Those people just ahead of you came to watch the reentry and they're just a few minutes too late.'"
She said there are "enough sounds where I live, in Wilbur-by-the-Sea, when we're at the beach or in our house, we'll hear random booms from time to time" that it's difficult for her to differentiate between them.
"There so much going on nearby that half the time you are like, 'Oh it's just another launch,'" Tobias said, adding that she also did not know about the planned splashdown for today. "To me it sounds like a big dump truck in the distance, is how I always describe it."
SpaceX Dragon splashdown near Daytona Beach coast
At 7:37 a.m., SpaceX reported that Dragon's trunk had been jettisoned. By 7:55 a.m., the deorbit burn was complete.
Commander López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut and dual American-Spanish citizen; mission specialist Alper Gezeravcı of Turkey; mission specialist Marcus Wandt of Sweden, a European Space Agency astronaut; and pilot Walter Villadei, an Italian Air Force colonel were the four astronauts aboard the capsule.
The capsule passed through its communications blackout period, and its parachutes began deploying at 8:26 a.m., just before the splashdown at 8:30 a.m.
Peak re-entry temperatures were projected to reach about 3,500 degrees on the capsule's heat shield — with top speeds of 17,500 mph, Jessie Anderson, a SpaceX production and engineering manager, said during the launch webcast. The Dragon capsule measures 16 feet tall and 13 feet in diameter.
"Once it's time for our crew to splash down back on Earth, they'll be heading to one of seven targeted sites supported by SpaceX. All of these sites are located off the coast of Florida, either in the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean," Anderson said. "Spreading the supported sites across multiple locations helps to maximize the return opportunities for this mission in future crews, lowering the chance that we'll have to wave off due to bad weather," she said.
Coast Guard patrol boats were deployed to discourage boaters from entering the splashdown zones.
"Pretty exciting for the crew. I'm sure they're very excited to come home. They've been in space for about 21 days now," Anderson said.
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