The NASA International Space Station (ISS) crew that included a sick astronaut splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, California, early on Thursday morning. "Welcome home, Crew-11!" NASA said in an update, adding that the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft hit the on water on schedule at 12:41 a.m. PT.

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission returned safely to Earth after 167 days in orbit, completing hundreds of hours of research aboard the International Space Station.

Four astronauts returned to Earth early Thursday morning after leaving the International Space Station a month early because of a medical issue.

A SpaceX ship recovered the spacecraft from the ocean and at around 1:30 a.m. and welcomed aboard NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, plus Kimiya Yui of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Oleg Platonov of Roscosmos, the Russian space agency.

The research has implications for NASA’s goals to build a base on the moon and eventually conduct crewed missions to Mars.