Three astronauts return from International Space Station
The International Space Station (ISS) crew member Kathleen Rubins of NASA reacts shortly after the landing of the Soyuz MS-17 space capsule in a remote area outside Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan April 17, 2021. PHOTO: REUTERS.
Three members of the International Space Station's crew returned safely to Earth on Saturday on a Russian Soyuz craft, Russia's Roscosmos space agency reported.
The Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, a microbiologist who in 2016 became the first person to sequence DNA in space, and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov landed in Kazakhstan at 0455 GMT.
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The three had been at the space station since mid-October 2020.
Their mission was the last scheduled Russian flight carrying a US crew member, marking an end to a long dependency as the US revives its own crew launch capability in an effort to drive down the cost of sending astronauts to space.
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NASA has also awarded billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's space company SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to build a spacecraft to bring astronauts to the moon as early as 2024.
NASA said the lander will carry two American astronauts to the lunar surface.
SpaceX will be required to make a test flight of the lander to the moon before humans make the journey, NASA official Lisa Watson-Morgan told reporters.