On March 30, a Soyuz capsule landed safely on Earth, with two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut on board. If the return had been planned for several months, the geopolitical tensions between the West and Russia raised questions from observers.
Unusual return to Earth for astronauts of the international space station. On March 23, 2022 at 1:28 p.m. (French time), a capsule Soyuz MS-19 was landing near the Baikonur space base, located in Kazakhstan. The operation went off without a hitch, allowing cosmonauts Russians Anton Shkaplerov, Pyotr Dubrov and American Mark T. Vande Hei to return to solid ground. This return is taking place in a rather particular context, with tensions between the United States and Russia reaching their climax since the implementation of severe economic sanctions by the West from the first days of Russian invasion in Ukraine.
A successful return despite the uncertainties
The geopolitical situation obscures the return of the three astronauts. The group spent 355 days on board the ISS, a real feat, a few weeks from the record of Valeri Polyakov, cosmonaut who lived 437 days on the Mir space station from 1994 to 1995. The return of Mark Vande Hei worried observers , a few weeks earlier. The director general of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dmitri Rogozin, multiplied the bellicose announcements on Twitterthreatening to no longer balance the ISS with the Progress ship or to abandon Vande Hei on the station.
Faced with such a risk, NASA quickly issued a press releaseensuring that the astronaut would indeed return on board the Soyuz spacecraft on March 30, in collaboration with Roscosmos engineers. Elon Musk reacted by indicating that a capsule Crew Dragon would be ready to be launched to repatriate Vande Hei if necessary. The newspaper Bloomberg recalled that the abandonment of an astronaut on board the ISS represented an offense under the provisions of theOuter Space Treaty (Space Treaty) of 1967 and the Rescue and Return Agreement (Rescue and Repatriation Agreement) of 1968.
Non-stop return to the United States
Dubrov, Shkaplerov and Vande Hei were extricated from the Soyuz capsule shortly after landing in the steppes Kazakhs. The three men were transported by helicopter to Karaganda, still in Kazakhstan. If the American was welcomed as warmly as his Russian counterparts, he should return to the United States without delay on board a plane. Gulfstream. It will arrive directly in Houston, Texas.
On the ISS, joint scientific operations continue despite land conflicts. The station is home to three Americans (T. Mashburn, K. Barron, R. Chari), three Russians (S. Korsakov, D. Matveev, O. Artemyev) and one German (M. Maurer). A sign of unfailing camaraderie at an altitude of 400 kilometres, Shklaperov presented Thomas Mashburn with the symbolic key to ISS command, taking the opposite view from Dmitri Rogozin. ” We are one team, the ISS is a symbol of friendship and cooperation, and a symbol of space exploration”announced the Russian cosmonaut.
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