Two cosmonauts, NASA astronaut head for Wednesday touchdown after yearlong mission – Spaceflight Now

Outgoing house station commander Sergei Prokopyev and his two Soyuz crewmates, co-pilot Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, packed up Tuesday for a fiery plunge again to Earth early Wednesday to shut out a yearlong keep in orbit, the longest flight in U.S. house historical past.

When the trio launched in September 2022, they anticipated to spend six months aboard the Worldwide House Station, the conventional tour of obligation for a long-duration crew.

However a coolant leak disabled their Soyuz MS-22/68S ferry ship final December, prompting the Russians to launch a alternative — Soyuz MS-23/69S — final February. That meant Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio needed to keep aloft an extra six months to place the Russian crew-rotation schedule again on monitor.

If all goes effectively, they may lastly head for dwelling Wednesday, undocking from the house station at 3:54 a.m. EDT and touchdown on the steppe of Kazakhstan at 7:17 a.m. EDT (5:17 p.m. native time).

Throughout a quick change-of-command ceremony Tuesday, ISS Expedition 69 commander Prokopyev turned the lab over to European House Company astronaut Andreas Mogensen, presenting him with a symbolic key to the laboratory.

Chatting with the departing crew members, Mogensen supplied congratulations, saying “you’ve gotten proven resilience, professionalism and beauty within the face of surprising challenges and vital uncertainty.”

“It’s one factor to launch to house, realizing that you simply’re going to be up right here for a yr,” he added. “It’s a very totally different factor for you and your households to search out out in the direction of the tip of your six-month mission that you simply’re going to be spending an extra six months in house. However you took it upon your shoulders, and also you excelled.”

He thanked Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio for his or her “competence, dedication and arduous work” holding the station shipshape and “setting us up for fulfillment” in ISS Expedition 70.

“We hope to depart the house station is nearly as good as situation as we discovered it,” Mogensen concluded. “Nobody deserves to go dwelling to their households greater than you. We want you a clean flight and a mushy touchdown.”

Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio are being relieved by Soyuz MS-24/70S commander Oleg Kononenko, flight engineer Nicolai Chub and NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, who arrived on the house station on Sept. 15.

Mogensen flew to the lab final month aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft together with NASA’s Jasmin Moghbeli, Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa and cosmonaut Konstantin Borisov.

Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio plan to bid their seven station crewmates farewell in a single day Tuesday, float into their alternative Soyuz MS-23/69S ferry ship and await undocking from the Russian multi-port Prichal module.

After a fiery plunge again into the environment, the Soyuz crew module, suspended beneath a big parachute, is anticipated to settle to a jarring landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan close to the city of Dzhezkazgan about three-and-a-half hours after undocking. Assuming an on-time landing, the crew may have logged 370 days, 21 hours and 22 minutes off planet in a voyage spanning 5,936 orbits and 157 million miles. Prokopyev’s complete time in house over two flights will complete 568 days.

The late cosmonaut Valery Polyakov holds the world document for the longest single spaceflight, a 438-day keep aboard the Russian Mir house station in 1994-95. Prokopyev, Petelin and Rubio will transfer to No. 3 on the checklist, simply behind retired cosmonaut Sergei Avdeyev, who logged a 380-day stint aboard Mir in 1998-99.

The longest earlier U.S. flight was carried out by Mark Vande Hei, who spent 355 days aboard the Worldwide House Station in 2021-22.