Russia's Soyuz ferry broke away from the International Space Station and returned to Earth early Saturday morning, taking Russian cosmonauts, a Belarusian guest astronaut and a NASA cosmonaut to a picturesque retreat in the steppes of Kazakhstan. made the landing.
Soyuz MS-24/70S commander Oleg Nowitzki, accompanied by Belarusian Marina Vasilevskaya on his left and NASA cosmonaut Loral O'Hara on his right, at about 3:17 a.m. EDT east of the town of Zhezkazgan. We landed at 90 miles.
NASA TV
Russian recovery crews arrived on the scene within minutes and evacuated the returning astronauts from the cramped Soyuz descent module as they began to readjust to the pull of gravity.
The readjustment should be relatively easy for Nowitzki, a veteran, and Vasilevskaya, who is flying for the first time.They are Released on March 23rd He and NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson boarded the Soyuz MS-25/71S spacecraft and docked at the station two days later.
They spent just two weeks on the station, aboard the outdated Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft that carried station commanders Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chubb and O'Hara to the experiment facility last September. and returned to Earth.
NASA TV
Kononenko and Chubb are in the middle of a year-long mission to space. They, along with Dyson, are scheduled to return to Earth next September using the new MS-25 spacecraft delivered by Nowitzki. Novitsky and Vasilevskaya took O'Hara back to Earth on an old ferry ship. Released last September.
By touchdown, O'Hara had been away from the planet for 204 days and completed 3,264 orbits covering 86.6 million miles. She also participated in a spacewalk lasting 6 hours and 42 minutes. Nowitzki and Vasilevskiy documented her 14-day stay in 224 orbits and her 5.9 million miles of space.
All three appeared to be healthy and in good spirits as they rested in reclining chairs near the charred Soyuz descent capsule, watched over by support staff.
NASA/Bill Ingalls
“I'm overwhelmed with emotion,” Vasilevskaya told NASA TV through an interpreter. “It's incredible. I want every person on the planet to cherish and cherish what they have, because this is precious.
“Thank you to all the people of Belarus,” she continued. “I actually wanted to stay a little longer, but I'm really glad to be back. It was great to be able to ride the station.”
Vasilevskaya, an accomplished ballroom dancer and flight attendant for Belavia Airlines, is the first citizen of Belarus, a staunch ally of Russia, to fly into space since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Although relations between the United States and Russia remain at or near Cold War levels, the two countries continue to cooperate in the space field and jointly operate the International Space Station.
Dyson said she enjoyed training with Vasilevskaya before the launch, adding, “She was a real pleasure to work with.”
NASA TV
After a brief medical examination and satellite phone calls to family and friends at home, the three were scheduled to be flown by helicopter to Karaganda. From there, O'Hara will fly back to Houston on a NASA jet, while Nowitzki and Vasilevskaya will return to Star City near Moscow.
Those left behind in space were ISS commanders Kononenko, Chubb and Dyson, astronauts Alexander Grebenkin, and NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Janet Epps. there were.
O'Hara's return to Earth completed a complex series of flights to replace five of the seven crew members who stayed on the space station for an extended period of time.
NASA launched for the first time Dominic, Barratt, Epps, and Grebenkin flew to the station on March 3 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. They replaced four other astronauts who returned to Earth aboard another Crew Dragon.
This cleared the way for the launch of Nowitzki, Vasilevskaya, and Dyson, delivered fresh Soyuz and NASA veterans to the station, and O'Hara's return to Earth.
