SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — A sonic boom broke the silence in the middle of the night Tuesday as a SpaceX spacecraft carrying a crew splashed down off the coast of San Diego. The historic spaceflight also marked first human spaceflight to the International Space Station for India, Poland and Hungary.

SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station at 7:15 a.m. Monday, carrying Ax-4 astronauts — U.S. astronaut and commander Peggy Whitson, India’s Shubhanshu Shukla, Poland’s Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski, and Hungary’s Tibor Kapu.

In this image made from video provided by SpaceX, one of the four astronauts, Axiom’s Peggy Whitson, who served as commander, comes out of a SpaceX capsule loaded at the recovery ship after parachuting into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California on Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (SpaceX via AP)
In this image made from video provided by SpaceX, one of the four astronauts, Poland’s Slawosz Uznanski-Wisniewski, comes out of a SpaceX capsule loaded at the recovery ship after parachuting into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California on Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (SpaceX via AP)
In this image made from video provided by SpaceX, one of the four astronauts, India’s Shubhanshu Shukla, waves as he comes out of a SpaceX capsule loaded at the recovery ship after parachuting into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California on Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (SpaceX via AP)
In this image made from video provided by SpaceX, one of the four astronauts, Hungary’s Tibor Kapu, comes out of a SpaceX capsule loaded at the recovery ship after parachuting into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California on Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (SpaceX via AP)

The crew returned to Earth at 2:31 a.m. PT on Tuesday after 20 days in space. Watch the Ax-4 crew aboard the Dragon return to Earth here.

Watch the Dragon and Ax-4 crew depart from the ISS as it completes deorbit burns to move away from the ISS, conducts multiple orbit-lowering maneuvers, jettisons the trunk, then re-enters Earth’s atmosphere and deploys four drogue parachutes before splashing down off the coast of southern San Diego County.

This image made from video provided by SpaceX shows a SpaceX capsule carrying four astronauts parachuting into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California on Tuesday, July 15, 2025. (SpaceX via AP)

The spacecraft was expected to create a sonic boom just before it splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.

SpaceX Dragon spacecraft carrying crew to splash down at 2:31 a.m. Tuesday, July 15, 2025, with sonic boom off San Diego coast (PHOTO: SpaceX)

Axiom Space says Ax-4 was a scientific success and marked a historic milestone as, for the first time in over four decades, India, Poland, and Hungary launched national astronauts into space, who, for the first time ever, lived and worked aboard the International Space Station.

While in space, the astronauts conducted dozens of experiments. The Associated Press reports the countries paid more than $65 million apiece for the mission.

SpaceX says this was Dragon’s second human spaceflight mission to splash down off the coast of California after the Fram2 crew splashed down with a sonic boom off the coast of Oceanside in April.

This is Dragon’s second human spaceflight mission to splash down off the coast of California after Fram2 returned Dragon recovery operations to the West Coast this past April (PHOTO: SpaceX)

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a crew of four aboard a Dragon Spacecraft lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Wednesday, June 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Renna)

The Ax-4 crew had been onboard the ISS since Falcon 9 launched the spacecraft from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday, June 25.

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