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Joint Russia-US crew returns to Earth after 241-day mission on ISS
Russian cosmonauts Sergei Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, as well as US astronaut Christopher Williams, landed near the Kazakh city of Zhezkazgan on Sunday
A Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft carrying two Russian cosmonauts along with a NASA astronaut has returned to Earth after the end of their 8-month stint on the International Space Station (ISS).
According to Russia's Roscosmos space agency, cosmonauts Sergei Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikayev, as well as US astronaut Christopher Williams, landed near the Kazakh city of Zhezkazgan on Sunday. The spacecraft landed at 1:27 pm Moscow time (3:57 pm IST).
They had launched for a mission to the orbital outpost on November 27 last year. The 241-day stint on the orbiting outpost was the first space mission for Williams and Mikaev and the second for Kud‑Sverchkov.
The crew will be flown by helicopter to Karaganda, where Williams will board a plane to return to NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, while Kud‑Sverchkov and Mikaev will take a flight to their training base in Star City, just outside Moscow.
Bitter space rivals to partners
The US and Russia were once bitter rivals in the space race during the Cold War, going toe to toe in every avenue. While Russia, then the Soviet Union, sent the first satellite and the first man and woman into space, the US sent the first human to walk on the moon.
But since the Soviet Union's dissolution in December 1991, Moscow and Washington have cooperated on the International Space Station and other projects. That relationship was marred by tensions after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, but both countries have continued to work together, with US and Russian crews flying to the orbiting outpost on each country’s spacecraft.
The crew of NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina arrived at the International Space Station for an eight-month mission, launching from the Russia-leased Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 14.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman attended the launch, the first visit to Baikonur by a NASA chief in eight years.
The newly arrived trio have joined NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev as part of Expedition 75.
