NASA Astronaut Returning To Earth With 2 Russian Cosmonauts After Record 355 Days In Space

Vande Hei’s return to Earth will mark the completion of a 355-day mission spanning 5,680 orbits of Earth. With this, the NASA astronaut broke the previous record held by Scott Kelly, by 15 days.

New Delhi: NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, who served as Expedition 66 Flight Engineers on the International Space Station (ISS), are returning to Earth today. 

Vande Hei’s return to Earth will mark the completion of a 355-day mission spanning 5,680 orbits of Earth. With this, the NASA astronaut broke the previous record held by retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, by 15 days. 

The three flight engineers are returning aboard a Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft, which undocked from the Rassvet module of the space station on Wednesday, March 30, at 3:21 am EDT (12:51 pm IST), NASA said in a mission update. Over four hours later, the spacecraft will land in Kazakhstan, at 7:28 am EDT (4:58 pm IST). 

On April 9, 2021, Vande Hei, Dubrov and Oleg Novitsky blasted off to space on a Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft. Vande Hei, during the mission, broke the record for longest single spaceflight by an American astronaut, previously held at 340 days. Dubrov has also completed 355 days in space, while Novitsky returned to Earth in October last year, along with the Russian film crew who shot the first feature film in space. On October 5, 2021, Shkaplerov launched on a Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft to the space station. 

Following the departure of Vande Hei, Dubrov, and Shkaplerov, Expedition 67 formally began on the ISS. NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn is now the space station commander.

Expedition 67 members include Marshburn, NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Kayla Barron, European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Matthias Maurer, and Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev, and Sergey Korsakov.

Artemyev, Korsakov, and Matveev arrived at the space station on March 18, for a mission spanning six and a half months. 

Chari, Matthias, Marshburn, and Barron reached the ISS in November last year, aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon Endurance spacecraft, as part of the NASA SpaceX Crew-3 mission. Maurer officially became the 600th person in space. 

On March 23, Chari and Maurer performed an extravehicular activity (EVA), spending nearly seven hours outside the space station.

Vande Hei, Shkaplerov, and Dubrov will split up after landing, as per standard crew return practice. Vande Hei will return to his home in Houston, while the cosmonauts will fly back to their training base in Star City, Russia.