The US astronaut Loral O’Hara, the Belarusian Marina Wassilewskaya and the Russian Oleg Nowizki landed safely on board a Soyuz space capsule in the Kazakh steppes after the end of their mission on the International Space Station (ISS). The Russian space agency Roscosmos said the landing took place near the city of Sheskasgan. All three would be medically examined.
O’Hara has been in space as part of the ISS crew since September 2023. Vasilevskaya and Novitsky, on the other hand, came for a short stay at humanity’s outpost 400 kilometers above the earth just twelve days ago. Vasilevskaya, who works as a flight attendant for the Belarusian company Belavia, is the first woman in her country to fly into space.
Originally, she and Nowizki, for whom it was the fourth flight, were supposed to fly to the ISS two days in advance. The start was canceled at the last second due to technical problems. No problems were reported on the return journey.
After the three astronauts return, the three cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Nikolai Tschub and Alexander Grebenkin as well as the NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, Jeanette Epps and Tracy Dyson remain on board the ISS.
