Four astronauts return home after a six-month trip in a SpaceX capsule.

The third SpaceX long-duration astronaut crew has successfully returned to Earth, splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida, capping months of orbital study on everything from space-grown chillies to robots.

After a 23-hour-plus autonomous trip home from the International Space Station, the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule carrying three American NASA astronauts and a European Space Agency (ESA) crewmate from Germany parachuted into calm seas in darkness.

A joint NASA-SpaceX webcast broadcast the splashdown live at 12:45 a.m. local time (04:45 GMT) on Friday.

The Endurance crew included American spaceflight veteran Tom Marshburn, 61, and three first-time astronauts: NASA’s Raja Chari, 44, and Kayla Barron, 34, and their ESA colleague Matthias Maurer, 52.e ISS.

After a dramatic re-entry plunge through Earth’s atmosphere, which generated frictional heat, temperatures outside the capsule soared to 1,930 degrees Celsius (3,500F).

In the last stages of descent, two sets of parachutes billowed above the capsule, slowing its descent to roughly 24km/h (15mph) before it hit the water off the shore of Tampa, Florida.

“It’s the end of a six-month mission,” Maurer said, “but I believe the space dream goes on.”

“That was a fantastic ride,” Chari, the capsule commander, said. “Only one criticism,” he said about the restoration to gravity. “These water bottles are massive.”

Over the webcast, which displayed infrared views of the capsule on its final descent, applause could be heard from the SpaceX flight control centre in suburban Los Angeles.

NASA’s “Commercial Crew 3,” the third full-fledged, long-duration team of four that SpaceX has carried to the space station under contract for the US space agency, was officially designated.