NASA will broadcast the return of American astronaut Mark Vande Hei and two cosmonauts from Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, who will finish their mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and return to Earth this Wednesday. (30).
The farewell and closing of the hatch will begin broadcasting at 0:30 am on Wednesday, Brasília time, and will be available on NASA channels: Nasa TV and on the agency’s website.
Vande Hei, along with Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, will close the hatch of the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft to begin the journey back to Earth.
The American will end a 355-day mission spanning 5,680 Earth orbits and more than 241 million kilometers – the record for the longest single spaceflight by a US astronaut, previously carried out in 340 days by astronaut Scott Kelly in 2 March 2013.
Vande Hei was sent into space on April 9, 2021, on Soyuz MS-18, a Russian spacecraft.
The Soyuz will decouple from the Rassvet module, heading for a parachute-assisted landing in Kazakhstan, southeast of the city of Dzhezkazgan.
Prior to coverage of the Soyuz departure, Shkaplerov handed over command of the station to NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn.
At 4:21 am, the undocking should take place. In the morning, at 8:28 am, the transmission of the orbit burn and landing begins.
Upon undocking, the 67th expedition will formally begin aboard the station, with the station’s new commander Tom Marshburn, NASA astronauts Raja Chari and European Space Agency (ESA) Kayla Barron, plus Matthias Maurer and the cosmonauts. from Roscosmos Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov.
According to NASA, upon landing, the crew of the Soyuz MS-19 will disband, as per standard return practice, with Vande Hei returning to his home in Houston while the cosmonauts fly back to the training base in Star City, in Russia.
Operations with the Russian space agency
As the war in Ukraine intensifies after the invasion of Russian troops, pressure is mounting on Roscosmos’ partnerships. In mid-March, ESA suspended the mission to Mars with Russia.
Despite suspending the mission to Mars, ESA said the International Space Station program “continues to operate as planned, with the primary objective of continuing the safe operations of the ISS, including maintaining crew safety.”
Joint operations between NASA and Roscosmos at Russian facilities in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, “continue to go well,” Joel Montalbano, program manager for NASA’s International Space Station, said during a March 14 news conference.
The ISS is a US-Russia partnership that has spanned more than two decades. The creation took place after the Cold War and had not been impacted by geopolitical conflicts such as the invasion of Crimea in 2014.
For the ISS to function with mastery, it needs a Russian segment and a North American one: engines and necessary maneuvers come from Russia, energy and life support come from the United States.
Despite US sanctions on Russia, the partnership around the ISS has continued. Even when, in late February, the head of Russia’s space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, said that new US sanctions had the potential to “destroy cooperation” on the ISS.
THE CNN, a NASA spokesperson said that “the new export control measures will continue to allow for US-Russia civil space cooperation. No changes are planned to the agency’s support for continued operations in orbit and ground stations,” the spokesperson continued.
Watch the broadcast live:
With information from CNN’s Ashley Strickland
Source: CNN Brasil
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