NASA astronaut, Russian cosmonauts prepare to land in Kazakhstan
In a Russian Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft, Vande Hei and cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov undocked from the International Space Station at 3.21 a.m. ET Wednesday. They are scheduled to land on the steppe of Kazakhstan later Wednesday.
It’s a highly anticipated return that has only drawn more attention due to mounting geopolitical tensions over the past month, and NASA has repeatedly reaffirmed that it continues to work closely with Russian space agency Roscosmos.
The spacecraft will experience its deorbit burn at 6:30 a.m. ET Wednesday, with the crew expected to make their parachute-assisted landing at 7:28 a.m. ET southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan.
After landing, Vande Hei will travel back to Houston aboard a Gulfstream jet, as other NASA astronauts have done before, and the cosmonauts will return to their training base in Star City, Russia.
Joint operations between NASA and Roscosmos at the Russian facilities at Baikonur, Kazakhstan, “continue to go well,” said Joel Montalbano, the manager of NASA’s International Space Station program, during a press conference on March 14.
Vande Hei and Dubrov launched to the space station in April 2021, and together they have completed 5,680 orbits of Earth and traveled more than 150 million miles around our planet. Vande Hei has now broken the record for the longest single spaceflight by an American astronaut, which previously was set by Kelly at 340 days.
This was Vande Hei’s second spaceflight, so he has logged a total of 523 days in space. It was Dubrov’s first flight.
Change of command
Shkaplerov handed over command of the International Space Station to NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn Tuesday morning. Before handing Marshburn a ceremonial “key” to the space station, signifying the change in command, Shkaplerov reflected on his time in space, including some of the situations the crew have faced.
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