Rabea Rogge, a 29-year-old robotics researcher from Berlin who became the first German woman in space, returned to Earth.

Rogge joined three other travelers on a four-day journey in spacein their Dragon capsule, built by Elon Musk's SpaceX, for a mission orbiting over the Earth's polar regions.

Although such landings usually take place off the US east coast, the capsule plunged into the sea off the southern coast of California. SpaceX said the change was for safety reasons.

"Our goal is not only to overcome boundaries but also to create new opportunities for space travel and science," Rogge told German agency dpa before the mission.

The trip was privately commissioned by billionaire Chun Wang, who refused to say how much he had paid for the trip. Rogge is one of Wang's associates to have joined the trip, which also included Norwegian film director Jannicke Mikkelsen, and Australian polar guide Eric Philips.

Rogge was invited after Wang had met her during training for an expedition in the archipelago of Svalbard in Norway. A scientific specialist, Rogge was responsible for coordinating the mission's research.

The mission, called Fram2 after the Norwegian sailing ship that carried explorers to the poles more than a century ago, carried out 22 research experiments, with their focus being on how the human body changes in microgravity and the growth of mushrooms in zero gravity.

The Fram2 mission also took the first x-ray images in space.

Quelle: DW