Russian cosmonauts are ‘surprised’ by suit over suit, says astronaut

The three Russian cosmonauts who boarded the International Space Station last month in Ukraine flag-colored spacesuits were paying tribute to the university they studied at and not protesting Russia’s invasion, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei said on Tuesday. Tuesday (5).

The yellow and blue spacesuits surprised many observers, who assumed the Russians were showing support for Ukraine. However, the three cosmonauts graduated from Bauman Moscow State Technical University, which has the colors yellow and blue in its emblem.

Vande Hei said cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveev and Sergey Korsakov were caught off guard by the controversy over their spacesuits.

“All three are related to the same university, and I think they were taken aback by that,” he told a news conference.

Vande Hei said he did not shy away from discussing the war with his space station crewmates.

“It wasn’t very long discussions, but I asked them how they were feeling and sometimes I asked them pointed questions, but our focus was on our mission together.”

Vande Hei landed in Kazakhstan on a Russian Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft on March 30, after a record 355 days in space. He traveled back from the space station with cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov.

geopolitical tensions

The return of the International Space Station has been long-awaited and has drawn unprecedented attention because of rising geopolitical tensions fueled by the head of the Russian space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, who has made several social media posts aimed at the United States.

This included Rogozin retweeting a partially animated video that appeared to threaten that Russian cosmonauts would abandon Vande Hei in space.

Rogozin was also involved in a Twitter discussion with retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who held the record for the longest stay in space by a US astronaut until Vande Hei surpassed him.

Vande Hei said he heard about the posts from his wife. “I never saw these tweets as something to take seriously,” he said, adding that he saw the posts as aimed at an “another audience” besides himself.

“I just didn’t spend a lot of emotional energy paying attention to it. I heard about it. I kind of laughed and moved on,” he said.

On Saturday, Rogozin hinted in a series of tweets that Russia might end cooperation with the International Space Station due to international sanctions on Moscow and said Russia would prepare “concrete proposals to our country’s leadership” on the possibility of ending the cooperation. on the station with the space agencies of the United States, Canada, the European Union and Japan.

NASA said “the professional relationship between our international partners, astronauts and cosmonauts continues for the safety and mission of everyone aboard the International Space Station.”

Other parts of Russia’s space program were affected by the war in Ukraine. The country’s Mars rover project with the European Space Agency is on hold.

Russian crewmates are ‘dear friends’

Vande Hei declined to reveal how the Russians on board felt about the invasion of Ukraine. “These are things I would rather they share directly, rather than me sharing how they feel about it,” he said.

He said the invasion itself was “heartbreaking, very sad” and felt “powerless” to learn about it while in space. Vande Hei said that didn’t change his feelings about his Russian crewmates.

“They were, are and will continue to be my dear friends. We support each other in everything. And I never had any concerns about my ability to continue working with them.”

Upon landing after his record-breaking mission, Vande Hei said he was able to walk after about eight hours, although he said he was more staggering.

He said he was also happy to eat guacamole for the first time in a year and was shocked at how normal it felt to be back on Earth after so long in space.

“It’s a little disappointing how normal this feels.”

With information from Rachel Crane and Ross Levitt of CNN