Mark Vande Hei, who clocked the longest single spaceflight for an American astronaut, has returned to Earth. Vande Hei spent 355 consecutive days in space, breaking retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly’s record by 15 days.
Vande Hei traveled back to Earth in a Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft with Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov. While some initially feared that Vande Hei could be left stranded due to ongoing U.S. sanctions against Russia, the Russian space agency Roscosmos gave a statement in early March ensuring that Vande Hei would be welcomed onboard the spacecraft.
The three passengers left at 11:30 p.m. EDT on March 29 and touched down at 7:28 a.m. EDT (5:28 a.m. local time) in Kazakhstan via a parachute-assisted landing.
Rob Navias of NASA’s public affairs office reported on the space agency’s broadcast that it was “a perfect landing, a bull’s eye touchdown,” according to The Washington Post. Before touchdown, he said, “the crew feeling fine, everything going by the book.”
During his time in space, NASA credited Vande Hei for his contributions to dozens of studies from the hundreds executed during his mission. Among them were six science investigations supported by NASA’s Human Research Program.
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