US-Russia Crew Returns Safely to Earth After 7-Month ISS Mission

A joint US-Russian crew, comprised of Russian astronauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Wagner and American astronaut Donald Pettit, safely returned to Earth on Sunday after a seven-month science mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS), Al Jazeera reports.

The Russian Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft carrying the trio touched down southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 6:20am (01:20 GMT). The successful landing was confirmed by both NASA and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency.

Adding a personal touch to the event, the US astronaut’s return to Earth coincided with his 70th birthday, a detail highlighted by NASA on social media platform X. NASA reported that the crew was transported to a recovery staging area in Karaganda and that Pettit was in good condition.

The crew arrived at the orbiting ISS laboratory on September 11, 2024, and spent 220 days in space. During their mission, they orbited the Earth 3,520 times, covering a remarkable distance of 93.3 million miles (150.15 million km), according to NASA.

Pettit’s research focused on “in-orbit metal 3D printing capabilities” and “water sanitisation technologies,” as well as exploring plant growth and fire behaviour in space. This mission marked Pettit’s fourth spaceflight, bringing his total time in orbit to 590 days. Ovchinin has accumulated 595 days in space over four flights, while Wagner has reached a total of 416 days across two missions.

Despite heightened geopolitical tensions between the US and Russia following the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, space exploration has remained a significant area of cooperation between the two nations.

Earlier this month, the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft transported another US-Russia crew – NASA’s Jonathan Kim and Russian crewmates Sergei Ryzhikov and Alexei Zubritsky – to the ISS to conduct further scientific experiments.

However, the US and other Western countries have severed other partnerships with Roscosmos as part of a series of sanctions imposed on Russia in response to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. It is important to note that astronauts trained and certified by NASA and other agencies like the European Space Agency are referred to as cosmonauts when representing Roscosmos.