- US astronaut Mark Vande Hei returned from the
ISS on Wednesday. - He left on a
Russia n Soyuz capsule amid tension between Russia's space program and the US.
US astronaut Mark Vande Hei set off Wednesday to return to Earth on a Russian space capsule. Vande Hei spent 355 days in the International Space Station (ISS) — the longest continuous trip in low-Earth orbit.
Vande Hei boarded the Russia Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft on Wednesday with Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov.
The trip is an example of increasing rare US-Russian cooperation after the Russian invasion of
The spacecraft landed in Kazakhstan at 7:28 a.m. ET on Wednesday.
—International Space Station (@Space_Station) March 30, 2022
Vande Hei's record-breaking achievement was marred by raised tensions between Russia and the US.
In recent weeks, Russia's space agency chief Dimitry Rogozin has criticized the US sanctions in aggresive social-media posts, including a public spat on Twitter with former US astronaut Mark Kelly.
A heavily edited video aired by the State-Owned RIA Novosti and shared by
It showed Russian cosmonauts seemingly waving goodbye at Vande Hei before boarding a shuttle departing from the ISS.
Rogozin, however, said on March 11 that Vande Hei would come back to Earth as planned, and dismissed what he called "hysterical" news reports suggesting otherwise, per Space.com. NASA also confirmed the return would proceed as normal.
Vande Hei's trip broke the longest continuous spaceflight record — previously set by Kelly in 2016 — by 15 days. During his trip, he studied muscle loss in space, kidney health, and fire safety among other topics, as shown in a tweet below.
—ISS Research (@ISS_Research) March 25, 2022
Roscosmos cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov handed over command of the ISS to NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn on Tuesday in a collegial ceremony, during which he said the crew "worked together very hard."
"We worked very hard, like one crew, and we did not have problems," he said.