In a statement, the US space agency indicated that “on March 30, the Soyuz spacecraft will return, as scheduled, carrying NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov back to Earth.”
The note added that Vande Hei will hold “the American record” for being the person who has made the longest spaceflight: 355 days.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, has raised doubts about the future of the space missions in which Russia is involved, a country against which the US and its allies have imposed harsh sanctions and measures in retaliation.
This Thursday, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the suspension of the launch of the Exomars mission, which aims to search for biological or geological evidence of life on Mars, given the impossibility of cooperating with the Russian agency Roscosmos, with which it collaborated in this project.
The ESA, which said it was “completely” aligned with the sanctions imposed on Russia by its member states after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, pointed out that it is going to evaluate the options available to implement the mission that was going to launch the rover (exploration vehicle ) in September.
The European agency recalled on Thursday that Roscosmos’ decision to withdraw its staff from the European space center, in French Guiana, has interrupted all the missions that were going to take off with a Russian Soyuz rocket.
Five days ago, Rococosmos appealed to its partners demanding the end of sanctions against Russia, since they endanger this project.
The International Space Station is owned by ESA, Roscosmos, the US space agency (NASA), the Japanese JAXA and the Canadian CSA.
The entrance US astronaut will return to Earth aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft was first published in diary TODAY.
