NASA and Russian Crew Return Safely from ISS Mission

Sunday 20 April 2025 - 13:50

By: Zahouani Ilham

NASA and Russian Crew Return Safely from ISS Mission

After spending seven months aboard the International Space Station (ISS), astronauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Wagner of Russia, along with NASA astronaut Donald Pettit, have returned safely to Earth. The trio landed in Kazakhstan early Sunday morning aboard the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft, which touched down southeast of Dzhezkazgan at 6:20 a.m. local time (01:20 GMT). Both NASA and Russia’s space agency, Roscosmos, confirmed the successful landing.

Coincidentally, the landing occurred on Pettit’s 70th birthday. He and his fellow crewmates were later transferred to a recovery site in Karaganda, where NASA reported that Pettit was in good health.

Their mission, which began with their arrival at the ISS on September 11, 2024, lasted 220 days. During this time, the team completed 3,520 orbits around the Earth, covering approximately 93.3 million miles (150.15 million kilometers).

While aboard the station, Pettit focused on research involving metal 3D printing in space, water sanitization technologies, plant biology, and fire behavior in microgravity. This flight marked his fourth journey into space, bringing his total time in orbit to 590 days. Ovchinin has now accumulated 595 days across four missions, and Wagner has logged 416 days over two missions.

Despite ongoing geopolitical tensions due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, space cooperation between NASA and Roscosmos has continued, standing out as a rare channel of collaboration. Earlier this month, another mixed crew aboard Soyuz MS-27 comprising NASA astronaut Jonathan Kim and Russian cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov and Alexei Zubritsky also departed for the ISS to pursue scientific research.

Nonetheless, most other international partnerships with Roscosmos have been suspended following sanctions imposed on Russia. Notably, when working with Roscosmos, astronauts from the West are referred to as cosmonauts.