A Russian Soyuz ferry detached from the International Space Station and returned to Earth early Saturday, bringing a Russian cosmonaut, a Belarusian guest and a NASA astronaut to a perfect landing on the Kazakhstan steppe.
Soyuz MS-24/70S commander Oleg Novitskiy, flanked on the left by Belarusian Marina Vasilevskaya and on the right by NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, landed about 90 miles east of the city of Dzhezkazgan at 3:17 a.m. EDT.
NASA Television
Russian recovery teams were on scene within minutes to help return station aviators out of their cramped Soyuz descent module as they began readjusting to the gravity tug.
For veteran Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya who is flying for the first time, re-acclimatization should be relatively easy. They launched on March 23 aboard the Soyuz MS-25/71S spacecraft with NASA astronaut Tracy Dyson and docked with the station two days later.
After spending only two weeks aboard the station, they returned to Earth aboard the former Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft which carried station commander Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Chub and O’Hara to the laboratory complex in last September.
NASA Television
Kononenko and Chub are halfway through a year-long stay in space. They plan to return to Earth next September, alongside Dyson, using the new MS-25 spacecraft delivered by Novitskiy. Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya brought O’Hara back to Earth aboard her oldest ferry launched last September.
With the landing, O’Hara had spent 204 days off the planet, completing 3,264 orbits covering 86.6 million miles. She also participated in a six-hour, 42-minute spacewalk. Novitskiy and Vasilevskya spent 14 days in space, covering 224 orbits and 5.9 million miles.
All three appeared healthy and in good spirits as they rested in recliners near their charred Soyuz descent capsule, waited on by support staff.
NASA/Bill Ingalls
“I am overwhelmed with emotions,” Vasilevskaya said, speaking through a translator on NASA TV. “It’s something incredible. I wish everyone on Earth to cherish what they have, because it is precious.
“I thank all the people of Belarus,” she continued. “We actually wanted to stay a little longer, but it’s great to be back. It was great to be on board the station.”
Vasilevskaya, an accomplished ballroom dancer and Belavia Airlines flight attendant, is the first citizen of Belarus, a staunch ally of Russia, to fly into space since the breakup of the Soviet Union.
While relations between the United States and Russia remain at or near Cold War levels, the two countries continue to cooperate in space, jointly operating the International Space Station.
For her part, Dyson said ahead of the launch that she enjoyed training with Vasilevskaya, adding that “working with her was a real pleasure.”
NASA Television
After brief medical examinations and satellite phone calls to family and friends, the trio were to be flown by helicopter to Karaganda. From there, O’Hara will return home to Houston aboard a NASA plane while Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya will return to Star City, near Moscow.
Remaining in space were ISS Commander Kononenko, Chub, Dyson, cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin and NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps.
O’Hara’s return to Earth completed a complex sequence of flights to replace five of the space station’s seven long-term crew members.
NASA launched for the first time Dominick, Barratt, Epps and Grebenkin to the station March 3 aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. They replaced four other aviators who had returned to Earth aboard another Crew Dragon.
This paved the way for the launch of Novitskiy, Vasilevskaya and Dyson, delivering a new Soyuz and the NASA veteran to the station, then returning O’Hara to Earth.
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