Summary
ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot has returned to Europe after 237 days, 5 hours and 18 minutes in space. Her εpsilon mission set a European record for the longest single spaceflight and included three spacewalks.
ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot returned to Europe on 10 October 2026 after spending 237 days, 5 hours and 18 minutes in space on the International Space Station (ISS). Her first mission, named εpsilon, set a new European record for the longest single spaceflight, according to ESA.
Adenot travelled with NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev as part of Crew-12. The crew undocked from the station on 7 October at 12:05 GMT and splashed down on 8 October at 15:34 GMT. After initial medical checks and post-flight activities in Houston, Adenot flew to ESA’s European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany, landing at 04:21 GMT on 10 October.
A European record and three spacewalks
Adenot’s flight exceeded by more than 35 days the previous European single-flight record, held by ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano for his Beyond mission. Crew-12 also set a duration record for a SpaceX Dragon mission, passing the previous mark of 235 days set by Crew-8.
During εpsilon, Adenot completed three spacewalks in 14 days, spending a total of 19 hours and 42 minutes outside the station. ESA describes her as the second European woman to conduct a spacewalk, after Samantha Cristoforetti, and the first French woman to do so.
Research work and recovery
ESA says Adenot spent around 218 hours working on 35 European payloads and about 25 hours on maintenance or upgrades to ESA systems in Columbus, the station’s European research facility. Her work covered experiments in areas including health research, materials science, biology, fluid and radiation physics, and fundamental science. She also completed the εpsilon-specific experiments proposed by France’s space agency CNES and all ESA experiments assigned to her.
The mission included tests of technologies intended for future exploration, among them the European exercise device E4D and in-orbit metal 3D printing. ESA also says Adenot supported research payloads from commercial partners.
Adenot is scheduled to spend the next two to three weeks adjusting to Earth’s gravity and taking part in data collection at DLR’s :envihab facility beside the European Astronaut Centre. She will then continue rehabilitation and follow-up activities with ESA’s training team. The return announcement reports the mission’s activities and duration; it does not give detailed findings from the individual experiments.