emirates7 - A Soyuz spacecraft carrying one American and two Russian crew members from the International Space Station (ISS) returned safely to Earth on Sunday, landing on the Kazakh steppe, according to Russia's space agency, Roscosmos.
“At 04:20 Moscow time (01:20 GMT), the Soyuz MS-26 capsule with Alexei Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, and Donald (Don) Pettit onboard touched down near the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan,” Roscosmos announced.
The two Russian cosmonauts, Ovchinin and Vagner, along with NASA astronaut Pettit, spent 220 days aboard the ISS following their launch in September of the previous year.
Until March, they shared the station with two other U.S. astronauts whose mission was originally scheduled for just eight days. However, they remained in orbit for over nine months after their return spacecraft was deemed unfit for the journey home.
Despite severely strained ties between Moscow and Washington due to the war in Ukraine, space exploration remains one of the few remaining areas where the two nations continue to cooperate.
“At 04:20 Moscow time (01:20 GMT), the Soyuz MS-26 capsule with Alexei Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner, and Donald (Don) Pettit onboard touched down near the Kazakh town of Zhezkazgan,” Roscosmos announced.
The two Russian cosmonauts, Ovchinin and Vagner, along with NASA astronaut Pettit, spent 220 days aboard the ISS following their launch in September of the previous year.
Until March, they shared the station with two other U.S. astronauts whose mission was originally scheduled for just eight days. However, they remained in orbit for over nine months after their return spacecraft was deemed unfit for the journey home.
Despite severely strained ties between Moscow and Washington due to the war in Ukraine, space exploration remains one of the few remaining areas where the two nations continue to cooperate.