NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei has safely returned to Earth from the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) after breaking the report for the one longest spaceflight by a NASA astronaut.
Vande Hei touched down in Kazakhstan at 7:28 a.m. ET on Wednesday morning together with Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov after making a parachute-assisted descent.
The Russian Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft undocked from the Worldwide Area Station (ISS) at 3:21 a.m. on Wednesday. Round three hours later the spacecraft fired its engines in a deorbit burn that slowed it down in preparation for re-entry to Earth's environment.
Shortly after touchdown, Vande Hei was seen speaking on a telephone as he was transported into a brief medical tent for routine analysis.
Vande Hei had spent practically a 12 months in area—355 days in complete—together with Dubrov. Each of their six month stays aboard the ISS had been prolonged by one other six months final 12 months.
The prolonged keep surpasses the earlier NASA report for the longest single spaceflight, which was 340 days, held by former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly.
Vande Hei's return had been topic to hypothesis in latest weeks amid fears that Russia might refuse to return him to Earth due to tensions with the U.S. over the continuing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Nevertheless, in a assertion to Newsweek earlier this month, NASA mentioned it was persevering with cooperation with Russia to securely transport crew members to and from the ISS and that Vande Hei could be returning.
What did Mark Vande Hei do on the Worldwide Area Station?
In his time on the ISS, Vande Hei orbited the Earth round 5,680 occasions and traveled greater than 150 million miles. He additionally noticed 13 completely different spacecraft arrive on the station, together with SpaceX's Dragon and Russia's Soyuz capsules.
Whereas on board, Vande Hei took half in numerous scientific experiments together with one which investigated muscle loss in area utilizing engineered tissues and one other that examined how the human immune system capabilities in microgravity.
He put in an experiment platform that may enable astronauts to position supplies like concrete, seeds, and microbes outdoors of the area station, exposing them to the tough vacuum of area to see what would occur. He additionally participated within the harvest of chili peppers in area, too, as a part of checks of development and watering methods that enable astronauts to develop vegetation in microgravity.
Vande Hei additionally put in hearth ignition and extinction hardware in preparation for hearth security experiments aboard the station. Such experiments might assist decide the perfect strategies for extinguishing fires in area and determine safer supplies for future area services.
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