NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Russians Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikayev returned aboard the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, which smoothly parachuted down in the designated area southeast of Zhezkazgan.
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Their 241-day mission on the orbiting station was the first space mission for C. Williams and S. Mikayev, and the second for S. Kud-Sverchkov.
The crew will be flown by helicopter to Karaganda, where C. Williams will board a plane and return to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, while S. Kud-Sverchkov and S. Mikayev will fly to their training base in Star City near Moscow.
Russia and the US, fierce rivals in the space race during the Cold War, cooperate on the ISS and other projects. These relations have been overshadowed by tensions after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, but Washington and Moscow continue to work together, with US and Russian crews flying to the orbiting station aboard spacecraft from both countries.
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On July 14, a crew consisting of NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina arrived at the ISS for an eight-month mission from Russia’s leased Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman attended the launch – it was the first visit by a NASA head to Baikonur in eight years.
The newly arrived trio joined NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, European Space Agency astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev as part of Expedition 75.
