UPDATE: SATURDAY, 8/9/2025 9:41 a.m.
(COLORADO) — According to NASA, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft successfully splashed down in the ocean at 9:33 a.m. off the California coast after an approximately 17 and a half hour journey from space.
SATURDAY, 8/9/2025 9:21 a.m.
U.S. Air Force Major Nichole Ayers, a NASA astronaut and graduate of both Woodland Park High School and the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA), is landing back on Earth after nearly five months on the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday, Aug. 9.
Along with fellow NASA astronaut Anne McClain, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Takuya Onishi, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, Ayers undocked from the ISS aboard the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft at around 4:15 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 8, and is scheduled to splash down off the California coast at around 9:30 a.m. on Saturday.
Ayers launched on March 14 to join the ISS, and while there, has taken part in multiple research projects, such as tests on how the human body adapts to space, as well as technology demonstrations, and maintenance activities aboard the microgravity laboratory. Ayers also took part in the fifth all-female spacewalk with McClain in May and answered questions from students of Woodland Park High School in a Space to Earth call.
After graduating from Woodland Park High School, Ayers earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a minor in Russian from the USAFA, having graduated from pilot training in 2014, when she began flying the T-38A at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. She then became an instructor pilot in the F-22 and has flown missions all over the nation and the world.
She later earned a master’s degree in computational and applied mathematics from Rice University in Houston and was selected by NASA to join the 2021 Astronaut Candidate Class, reporting for duty in January 2022.
