NASA's SpaceX first crew mission on way home from space station

WASHINGTON, May 1 (Xinhua) -- NASA's SpaceX Crew-1 mission undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday and was on its way back to Earth.

The Crew-1 mission, which consists of NASA astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, and Shannon Walker, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi, is scheduled to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico at 2:57 a.m. Eastern Time (0657 GMT) Sunday.

The four astronauts are returning home after 167 days in space -- the most for a U.S. spacecraft since the final Skylab mission in 1974.

Crew-1 is the first of six crewed missions NASA and SpaceX will fly as part of the agency's Commercial Crew Program, which worked with the U.S. aerospace industry to return launches with astronauts on American rockets and spacecraft from American soil, according to NASA.