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NASA: Astronauts to Return from Space Station Next Week

French astronaut Thomas Pesquet said leaving the International Space Station was 'a bittersweet feeling' - EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY/AFP/File
French astronaut Thomas Pesquet said leaving the International Space Station was 'a bittersweet feeling' - EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY/AFP/File
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NASA: Astronauts to Return from Space Station Next Week

French astronaut Thomas Pesquet said leaving the International Space Station was 'a bittersweet feeling' - EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY/AFP/File
French astronaut Thomas Pesquet said leaving the International Space Station was 'a bittersweet feeling' - EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY/AFP/File

Four astronauts are scheduled to return to Earth from the International Space Station early Monday after spending more than six months in space, NASA announced.

The four members of the Crew-2 mission, including a French and a Japanese astronaut, will therefore return to Earth before the arrival of a replacement crew, whose take-off was delayed several times due to unfavorable weather conditions.

NASA said in a statement late Friday that Crew-2 members are due to return to Earth "no earlier than 7:14 am EST (1214 GMT) Monday, Nov. 8, with a splashdown off the coast of Florida."

"As we're preparing to leave, it's kind of a bittersweet feeling, we might never come back to see the ISS, and it's really a magical place," French astronaut Thomas Pesquet said earlier Friday during a press conference from the space station.

"I'm very thankful that people dreamt the ISS some time ago and then went ahead and worked hard to make it happen and to build it for the benefit of everyone," Pesquet added.

Endeavor, the Crew Dragon spacecraft, is scheduled to undock from the International Space Station at 1805 GMT Sunday to begin the journey home, AFP reported.

Once detached from the ISS, the capsule will begin a journey of several hours, the duration of which can vary greatly depending on the trajectory, and will then land off the coast of Florida.

A backup undocking and splashdown opportunity is available Monday, if weather conditions are not favorable, NASA said.

The two missions are being carried out by NASA in collaboration with SpaceX, which now provides regular launches to the ISS from the United States.

Crew-3 is scheduled to take off for the ISS aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where astronauts have been in quarantine for days.

US astronaut Megan McArthur was confident that not getting the replacement crew to ISS before the current crew departs was just a temporary setback.

"Of course that's not optimal," McArthur told reporters during the Friday press conference. "But we are prepared to manage that. Spaceflight is full of lots of little challenges."

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Droughts in Iraq Endanger Buffalo, and Farmers' Livelihoods

A man provides fresh drinking water for his buffaloes, in the Chebayesh marshes of Dhi Qar province, Iraq, April 18, 2025. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani
A man provides fresh drinking water for his buffaloes, in the Chebayesh marshes of Dhi Qar province, Iraq, April 18, 2025. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani
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Droughts in Iraq Endanger Buffalo, and Farmers' Livelihoods

A man provides fresh drinking water for his buffaloes, in the Chebayesh marshes of Dhi Qar province, Iraq, April 18, 2025. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani
A man provides fresh drinking water for his buffaloes, in the Chebayesh marshes of Dhi Qar province, Iraq, April 18, 2025. REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani

Iraq’s buffalo population has more than halved in a decade as the country's two main rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, suffer severe droughts that endanger the livelihood of many farmers and breeders.
"People have left ... We are a small number of houses remaining," said farmer Sabah Ismail, 38, who rears buffalo in the southern province of Dhi Qar.
"The situation is difficult ... I had 120 to 130 buffalo; now I only have 50 to 60. Some died, and we sold some because of the drought," said Ismail while tending his herd.
Buffalo have been farmed for centuries in Iraq for their milk, and are mentioned in ancient Sumerian inscriptions from the region.
According to Iraqi marshland experts, the root causes of the water crisis driving farmers out of the countryside are climate change, upstream damming in Türkiye and Iran, outdated domestic irrigation techniques and a lack of long-term management plans.
The country has also endured decades of warfare.
Located within the cultivable lands known as the Fertile Crescent that have been farmed for millennia, the Iraqi landscape has suffered from upstream damming of the Tigris and Euphrates and lower rainfall, threatening the lifestyle of farmers like Ismail and leading many to move to the cities.
Iraqi marshland expert Jassim al-Assadi told Reuters that the number of buffalo in Iraq had fallen since 2015 from 150,000 to fewer than 65,000.
The decline is "mostly due to natural reasons: the lack of needed green pastures, pollution, illness ... and also farmers refraining from farming buffalos due to scarcity of income," al-Assadi said.
A drastic decline in crop production and a rise in fodder prices have also left farmers struggling to feed their animals.
The difficulty of maintaining a livelihood in Iraq's drought-stricken rural areas has contributed to growing migration towards the country's already-choked urban centers.
"This coming summer, God only knows, the mortality rate may reach half," said Abdul Hussain Sbaih, 39, an Iraqi buffalo breeder.