Historic Splashdowns, Lunar Leaps & Billion-Dollar Space Deals (Aug 8–9, 2025)
NASA’s Crew-10 astronauts splashed down off the California coast at 11:33 a.m. ET on Aug. 9, 2025, completing a 146-day mission and marking the first crewed West Coast splashdown under the Commercial Crew Program. Jim Lovell, Apollo 13 commander, died at 97 on Aug. 8. China tested its Lanyue lunar lander on Aug. 6. Firefly Aerospace began trading Aug. 7 after raising $868 million in its IPO.