Record-breaking NASA astronauts set to return in Russian capsule: 10 updates

NASA continues to work with all of our international partners, including the State Space Corporation RoscosmosDan Huot, NASA spokesman, for the ongoing safe operation of the International Space Station ANI,

Here’s a 10-point guide to understanding this big story:

1. Astronaut Mark Vande Hei is scheduled to accompany two Russians aboard a Soyuz capsule for touchdown in Kazakhstan on March 30, breaking the US single spaceflight record of 340 days. Astronauts will have entered space in 355 days by then, a new U.S. record. Russia holds the world record for being in space for 438 consecutive days.
2. This comes in the wake of growing fears that rising tensions between the United States and Russia on Ukraine The 55-year-old man trapped at the checkpoint can be released. Allaying apprehensions, NASA’s ISS program manager, Joel Montalbano, said, “I can tell you for sure that Mark is coming home on that Soyuz. We are in communication with our Russian allies. No matter what. No. Three crew members are coming home.”
3. Astronaut Vande Hei, a retired army colonel, moved to the space station last April, having been launched from Kazakhstan on a Soyuz with Pyotr Dubrov and another Russian. She and Dubrov stayed twice as usual to accommodate a Russian film crew that arrived in October. Montalbano continued, “There has been some discussion about it, but I can tell you that we are ready. Our Roscosmos colleagues have confirmed that they are ready to bring the entire crew home, all three of them.”
4. It comes after Russian Space Agency chief Dmitry Rogozin warned over the weekend that Western sanctions on Russia could crash the ISS, disrupting the operation of spacecraft critical to keeping the spacecraft in orbit. Might be possible.
5. Meanwhile on Monday the Russian news agency TASS reported that “Russian space corporation Roscosmos never gave its partners the slightest opportunity to doubt its credibility” and added that Vande Hei would go home as planned.
6. Additionally, NASA’s Montalbano said there was no change in day-to-day activities. “All these activities have been going on for 20 years and nothing has changed in the last three weeks: our control centers operate successfully, flawlessly, uninterruptedly,” he said.
7. It is important to note that while the US side of the ISS supplies power and life support, the Russian section is vital for propulsion and attitude control, these interdependencies being woven into the project from its inception in the 1990s.
8. NASA has said that it wants to keep the space station operational until 2030, as do European, Japanese and Canadian space agencies, while the Russians have not committed to the original completion date of 2024 or beyond.
9. The US and Russia are the principal operators of the orbiter, which it has been permanently occupied for 21 years. Until SpaceX began launching astronauts in 2020, Americans routinely spent tens of millions of dollars per seat riding on Russian Soyuz capsules. US and Russian space agencies are still working on a long-term barter system in which one will launch this fall on a Russian SpaceX capsule and one will fly on a US Soyuz. This will help ensure US and Russian station presence at all times, according to AP report good.
10. The European Space Agency is also reversing. After missing the 2020 launch deadline for its Mars rover – a joint European-Russian effort – the project was on track for a September liftoff from Kazakhstan. It is now most likely to close by 2024, the next opportunity for Earth and Mars to align properly. And Russia has removed its staff from a French-run launch site in South America, suspending Soyuz launches of European satellites.

(with inputs from agencies)