SpaceX has brought four astronauts home with a midnight splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico, capping the busiest month yet for Elon Musk’s space taxi service.

The three US astronauts and one German transported back to Earth in the capsule were bobbing off the Florida coast, near Tampa, less than 24 hours after leaving the International Space Station.

US space agency Nasa expects to have them back in Houston later on Friday.

Nasa’s Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn and Kayla Barron, and the European Space Agency’s Matthias Maurer, embraced the seven astronauts remaining at the station, before parting ways.

Mr Maurer said: “It’s the end of a six-month mission, but I think the space dream lives on.”

SpaceX brought up their US and Italian replacements last week, after completing a charter trip to the station for a trio of businessmen.

Space Station Crew Return
German astronaut Matthias Maurer gives a thumbs-up after being helped out of the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft (Nasa via AP)

That amounts to two crew launches and two splashdowns in barely a month.

Mr Musk’s company has now launched 26 people into orbit in less than two years, since it started ferrying astronauts for Nasa. Eight of those 26 were space tourists.

“Welcome home,” SpaceX Mission Control radioed at splashdown. “Thanks for flying SpaceX.”

Space Station Crew Return
Parachutes deployed on the capsule as it descends (Nasa via AP)

“That was a great ride,” replied Mr Chari, the capsule commander. As for the reintroduction to gravity, he noted: “Only one complaint. These water bottles are super-heavy.”

All four were out of the capsule an hour later, waving and giving thumbs-up as they were taken away for medical checks.

The astronauts said their mission was highlighted by the three visitors and their ex-astronaut escort who dropped by in April, opening up Nasa’s side of the station to paying guests after decades of resistance.

On the down side, they had to contend with a dangerous spike in space debris after Russia blew up a satellite in a missile test in mid-November.

More than 1,500 pieces of shrapnel will spread across Earth’s orbit for years to come.

Space Station Crew Return
European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer and Nasa astronauts Tom Marshburn, Raja Chari and Kayla Barron as they prepare to return to Earth (Nasa via AP)

While the war in Ukraine has caused tensions between the US and Russia, the astronauts have stood by their Russian crewmates, and vice versa.

Flight controllers in Houston and Moscow also continued to cooperate as always, according to Nasa officials.

As he relinquished command of the space station earlier this week, Mr Marshburn called it “a place of peace” and said international cooperation would likely be its lasting legacy.

Russian Oleg Artemyev, the new commander, also emphasised the “peace between our countries, our friendship” in orbit and described his crewmates as brothers and sisters.

The space station is now crewed by three Russians, three Americans and one Italian.

It was Mr Marshburn’s third spaceflight, and the first for the three returning with him.

Mr Chari and Ms Barron’s next stop could be the moon; they are among 18 US astronauts selected for Nasa’s Artemis moon-landing programme.

Two others in that elite group are now at the space station.