U.S. astronaut Mark Vande Hei won't be deserted on the Worldwide Area Station (ISS), NASA has insisted amid hypothesis on the contrary.
Vande Hei has been on the ISS for over 300 days and as of at present, March 15, has change into the report holder for essentially the most consecutive days spent in Earth orbit by a NASA astronaut.
He arrived on the ISS on April 9, 2021, aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft with a Russian crew. He's scheduled to return to Earth the identical means on March 30.
Nevertheless, in accordance with varied information stories, Dmitry Rogozin, the director basic of Russian area company Roscosmos, has made threats that the group would renege on its duty to ferry Vande Hei again to Earth.
These stories seem to have been made based mostly on interpretations of a fictional video, seen right here on Telegram, allegedly produced by Roscosmos that depicts the Russian phase of the ISS detaching from the remainder of it. CNN reported that the video reveals Russian cosmonauts waving goodbye to Vande Hei.
Nonetheless Cooperating
In an announcement to Newsweek, NASA mentioned this won't be the case.
"On March 30, a Soyuz spacecraft will return as scheduled carrying NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov again to Earth," the area company mentioned.
"NASA continues working with all our worldwide companions, together with the State Area Company Roscosmos, for the continued protected operations of the Worldwide Area Station, together with work to fly crew members to the orbital outpost and to return them safely to Earth."
Newsweek additionally contacted Roscosmos for remark, however did not obtain a reply.
Final week, U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly commented on hypothesis that Vande Hei could possibly be left on the ISS, telling CNN that such a state of affairs was "unimaginable," however added that he didn't know whether or not Russia would do such a factor or not.
Requested concerning the origin of the claims that Russia might go away Vande Hei on board the ISS, Kelly instructed Newsweek on Monday: "I do not know if anybody particularly said that. There was a video they produced that confirmed it. Plus they've mentioned many different provocative issues."
Since Russia's extensively condemned invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the way forward for area cooperation between Russia and the U.S. has been thrown into uncertainty as relations between the 2 nations deteriorated.
Roscosmos has labored with NASA for many years as a key companion in manning and sustaining the ISS, and from 2011 till 2020 the U.S. additionally relied on Russian rockets and capsules to get astronauts there and again once more.
But in latest weeks, Rogozin has made incendiary remarks about Russia's relationship with different nations in area in response to worldwide sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.
The ISS, as a logo of worldwide cooperation, was one in all Rogozin's first targets. In a sequence of tweets final month on the day Russia launched its invasion, Rogozin urged the area station might fall out of its orbit with out Russia's continued participation—although a number of specialists have instructed Newsweek that NASA might function the area station alone if it needed to.
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