A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut left the International Space Station on Wednesday and was due to land in Kazakhstan in the afternoon, a rare example of cooperation in the midst of a crisis around Ukraine.
The Soyuz MS-19 capsule, which carries Russians Anton Chkaplerov and Piotr Doubrov, as well as American Mark Vande Hei, detached from the ISS at 07:21 GMT as scheduled, Russian space agency Roscosmos said. .
The landing should take place at 11:28 GMT in southeastern Kazakhstan, according to the same source.
This trip comes in a context of strong tensions around Ukraine between Russia and Western countries, led by the United States, which have called into question several projects in the field of space cooperation.
At the beginning of March, Roscosmos had published a video in which it was said jokingly that Mark Vande Hei could stay on the ISS instead of returning with the Soyuz spacecraft. Faced with the concern of the Americans, the Russian agency then had to ensure that the astronaut would indeed be on the trip.
Mark Vande Hei holds the record for consecutive days spent in space by an American astronaut, with 355 days.
In this context of tensions, the boss of Roscosmos Dmitri Rogozine, who multiplies nationalist outings on social networks, affirmed in mid-March that the operation of the Russian vessels supplying the ISS will be disrupted by Western sanctions against Moscow in connection with the invasion of Ukraine.
According to him, it could even cause the ISS to “ditch or land”.
Space cooperation between Russia and Western countries was one of the few areas not to have suffered too much from the tensions that have been growing since the annexation in 2014 of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea by Moscow.
But in recent weeks, several cooperation projects have borne the brunt of the crisis around Ukraine.
The European Space Agency (ESA) thus announced in mid-March that it had suspended the Russian-European ExoMars mission and the search for alternatives for the launch of four other missions due to the offensive in Ukraine.
And for its part, Moscow has suspended the launch of OneWeb satellites, forcing its British operator to turn to the American company SpaceX of billionaire Elon Musk.