NASA
- NASA says US astronaut Mark Vande Hei will return to Earth aboard a Russian spacecraft.
- “I can tell you for sure Mark is coming home on that Soyuz,” said a senior NASA manager on Monday.
- Russian space chief Dmitry Rogozin had earlier cast doubt on his country’s further cooperation on the International Space Station.
NASA gave reassurances on Monday that US astronaut Mark Vande Hei would be returning to Earth from the International Space Station in a Russian spacecraft as planned despite concerns over the state of US-Russia space relations.
Speaking to members of the press, Joel Montalbano, a senior space station program manager at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, said that Vande Hei will be hitching a ride on a Soyuz capsule back to Earth and is due to land in Kazakhstan on March 30.
Vande Hei will share the spacecraft with Russian astronauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, who are currently aboard the ISS.
News of Vande Hei’s confirmed return comes amid concerns that US-Russia space relations have deteriorated amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict. On February 25, Russian space chief Dmitry Rogozin tweeted that US sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine could “destroy” both countries’ cooperation on the ISS.
“The reality is Mark Vande Hei is coming home on March 30 with Anton and Pyotr, period,” Montalbano told reporters on Monday. “We have confirmation from our Russian colleagues.”
“Nothing has changed in the last three weeks, the control centers operate successfully, flawlessly, seamlessly, we’re not seeing any impacts to what’s going on around us,” Montalbano added. “We’re able to do our jobs. We’re aware of what’s going on, but we are able to do our jobs, continue operations.”
Montalbano also noted that there are “no borders” in space.
“The teams continue to work together. Are they aware of what’s going on on Earth? Absolutely. But the teams are professional,” he said, adding that there are “no tensions” amongst the astronauts.
“They’ve been trained to do a job, and they’re going to do that job,” Montalbano added.
CBS reported on Monday that while Elon Musk’s SpaceX is sending astronauts to the ISS, Vande Hei’s gear is incompatible with SpaceX’s life support systems.
A NASA crew of flight surgeons will be on the ground in Kazakhstan to accompany Vande Hei back to Houston, per the outlet.
Upon touchdown, Vande Hei’s spaceflight record of 355 days will have broken a US record of 340 days in space that was set in 2016 by retired astronaut Scott Kelly.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Kelly and Rogozin have tweeted insults at each other, with Kelly suggesting that Rogozin get a job at McDonald’s and the latter claiming that the US astronaut had developed “dementia and aggression” after his many journeys to space.
Russia has also said that it is halting sales of rocket engines to the US, with Rogozin suggesting that US astronauts can fly to the space station on “broomsticks” instead.
On Wednesday, a SpaceX launch director poked fun of Rogozin’s comment when he said during a satellite launch: “Time to let the American broomstick fly.”
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