Watch Sophie Adenot return to Earth

What happened

She will begin her post-flight activities at EAC and the nearby :envihab facility, operated by the German Aerospace Center. A record-breaking mission Sophie was launched into orbit on 13 February 2026 for εpsilon, her first space mission, together with NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev aboard Dragon Freedom.

Check the detailed schedule at the end of this article for more details. Dragon’s heat shield provides protection from the hot plasma formed in front of the capsule as it comes down through the atmosphere.

The spacecraft faces extreme heat during this re-entry phase — as much as 1600°C. Sophie and her crewmates are planned to splash down off the coast of California on 8 October at 15:34 GMT/17:34 CEST, where a recovery team will pick the four astronauts up and then return them to solid ground for the first time in nearly eight months. A few hours later, Sophie will fly to Cologne , Germany, where ESA's European Astronaut Centre (EAC) is located.

Key facts

• Dragon’s heat shield — provides: protection from the hot plasma formed in front of the capsule as it comes down through the atmosphere