Italian astronaut Villadei returns to planet Earth

The Dragon Freedom spacecraft with Italian Air Force Colonel Walter Villadei splashed down in waters off Florida's Daytona Beach beach on Friday, bringing the Ax-3 mission to a conclusion, Azernews reports, citing ANSA.

The Ax-3 crew also made up of Sweden's Marcus Wandt, Alper Gezeravci from Turkiye and Michael López-Alegría, a dual US-Spanish citizen, came back to Earth 47 hours after undocking from the International Space Station, where they had been for 18 days.

Villadei is the eighth Italian to have been in space.

During this time, 56 experiments and space activities were done by the four astronauts during the Ax-3 mission.

The partially reusable Dragon spacecraft is operated by Axiom Space and Ax-3 was the third private flight to reach the ISS.