MOSCOW — A NASA astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts returned safely to Earth on Sunday after spending more than eight months aboard the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergei Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev landed aboard the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, which touched down under parachute in the steppes of Kazakhstan, southeast of Dzhezkazgan.
The trio completed a 241-day mission aboard the orbiting laboratory. It was the first spaceflight for Williams and Mikaev and the second for Kud-Sverchkov.
Following the landing, the crew was scheduled to travel by helicopter to Karaganda. Williams will then return to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, while Kud-Sverchkov and Mikaev will head to Russia’s Star City cosmonaut training center outside Moscow.
Despite tensions between Washington and Moscow following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the United States and Russia have continued cooperating on the International Space Station through joint crew exchanges, with astronauts and cosmonauts flying aboard both U.S. and Russian spacecraft.
The returning crew is being replaced by NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina, who arrived at the station on July 14 after launching from the Russian-operated Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman attended the launch, marking the first visit by a NASA chief to Baikonur in eight years.
The new arrivals joined NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev as members of Expedition 75 aboard the International Space Station.
Source: Saudi Gazette