A NASA astronaut, a Russian cosmonaut and Belarus’s first ever space traveller on Saturday returned to Earth safely after a fortnight aboard the International Space Station, Russia’s Roscosmos agency reported.
“On Saturday, at 10:17am Moscow time (0717 GMT), the descent vehicle of Sozuz MS-24 manned spacecraft landed near the Kazakh city of Jezkazgan,” Roscosmos reported.
“The (vessel’s) deorbit and its descent to Earth went off normally,” the agency added.
Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and the first ever Belarusian cosmonaut, Marina Vassilevskaya, “spent 14 days in orbit”, while American astronaut Loral O’Hara completed a 204-day mission.
In a statement, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko congratulated the crew for the safe return from their mission.
The spacecraft launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on March 23, following a two-day delay due to pre-launch issues. This setback highlights ongoing challenges faced by Russia’s space program, including financial woes, scandal, corruption, and failures.
NASA’s mission control team congratulated Novitskiy for safely returning “to your second home. We are happy to see you on the station once again.”
“Tracy, it’s so great to see your smiling face back on ISS,” said Costa Mavrides, NASA’s spacecraft communicator. “Everyone here in Houston, including your family and friends in the viewing room, are beaming with pride watching the screen.”
Kononenko, Chub and O’Hara were launched last September aboard the Soyuz MS-24/70S ferry ship while Dominick, Barratt, Epps and Grebenkin arrived earlier this month aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon.
Dyson is replacing O’Hara, who will return to Earth April 6 with Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya aboard the older MS-24/70S spacecraft that carried her into orbit last year. Dyson will come home next September with Kononenko and Chub using the MS-25/71S spacecraft delivered by Novitskiy.
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