A Soyuz capsule carrying two Russian cosmonauts and one American astronaut successfully touched down in Kazakhstan on Monday, bringing to an end a groundbreaking mission. The capsule landed on the Kazakh steppe after a smooth descent, approximately 3.5 hours after detaching from the International Space Station. The final stage of the landing saw the capsule descend under a red-and-white parachute at a speed of 7.2 meters per second (16 mph), with small rockets firing in the final moments to ensure a gentle touchdown.
The returning astronauts, Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, made history by completing a record-breaking 374-day stay on the space station. They surpassed the previous record on Friday, solidifying their place in space exploration history. Joining them on the journey back to Earth was American astronaut Tracy Dyson, who had spent six months aboard the orbiting laboratory.
Despite the return of these three astronauts, eight others remain on the space station, including Americans Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. The pair’s return was originally scheduled for much earlier, but their mission has been extended due to unexpected challenges. They were the first crew to fly aboard Boeing’s new Starliner capsule, but the mission was marred by technical issues, including thruster problems and helium leaks. As a result, NASA deemed it unsafe for the Starliner capsule to bring them back to Earth, and the two astronauts are now scheduled to return on a SpaceX spacecraft next year.
