Russian spacecraft with NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei aboard lands in Kazakhstan
NASA trying to keep International Space Station in orbit amid Russian conflict
Author and former NASA engineer Homer Hickam joins ‘Fox Friends First’ to discuss Russia’s threat to withdraw support for the International Space Station.
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and two cosmonauts touched down in Kazakhstan on Wednesday.
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After undocking from the International Space Station (ISS) at 3:21 a.m. ET, the deorbit burn began for the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft shortly after 6:30 a.m. ET.
NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas confirmed module separation just after 7 a.m. ET and Vande Hei and Russia’s Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov nominally landed on Earth at 7:28 a.m. ET.
Both Dubrov and Vande Hei launched to the ISS on Soyuz MS-18 on April 9, 2021, with record stays on the orbiting laboratory.
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Vande Hei will have spent 355 consecutive days on the ISS, according to NASA. That’s the longest single stretch any American has ever spent in the final frontier.
While Dubrov spent the same amount of time there, 355 days is not a record for the country.
The landing comes as tensions between Russia and the U.S. have increased, following Russia’s continued invasion of Ukraine.
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“This is a very challenging time for international relations. My hope is that, in our attempts to further and find peace throughout the world, that these type of connections that we have can be maintained and serve as a path forward to try to find that common ground that we need so desperately to find peace,” Vande Hei said in an interview with NASA last week.
Article source: https://www.foxnews.com/science/russian-spacecraft-nasa-astronaut-mark-vande-hei-lands-kazakhstan