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Astronauts adjusting to Earth's gravity
On the eve of his 70th birthday, Don Pettit, NASA's oldest active-duty astronaut, and 2 cosmonaut crewmates undocked from the International Space Station Saturday and geared up for a fiery overnight plunge backmost to Earth to adjacent retired a 220-day expedition.
Pettit, Soyuz MS-26/72S commandant Alexey Ovchinin and formation technologist Ivan Vagner undocked from the Russian Rassvet docking larboard astatine 5:57 p.m. Eastern Time, mounting up a parachute-assisted landing connected the steppe of Kazakhstan adjacent the municipality of Dzhezkazgan astatine 9:20 p.m. section time, oregon 6:20 a.m. Eastern Time Sunday, Pettit's birthday.
The Soyuz MS-26/72S spacecraft carrying commandant Alexey Ovchinin, Ivan Vagner and NASA's Don Pettit backs distant from the International Space Station moments aft undocking from the Russian Rassvet larboard Saturday arsenic the 2 spacecraft sailed 260 miles supra confederate Mongolia.
NASA
Russian betterment crews and NASA unit were deployed adjacent to assistance the returning unit retired of the Soyuz descent module with archetypal aesculapian checks and outer telephone calls to household and friends arsenic they statesman their readjustment to gravity aft 7 months successful weightlessness.
Assuming an on-time landing, ngo duration volition basal astatine 220 days and astir 9 hours, spanning 3,520 orbits and 93.3 cardinal miles since motorboat past Sept. 11 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome successful Kazakhstan.
At touchdown, Ovchinin volition person logged 595 days successful abstraction implicit 4 flights, followed intimately by Pettit, whose full volition basal astatine 590 days implicit 4 flights of his own. Vagner's full volition beryllium 416 days aloft during 2 abstraction presumption visits.
The satellite grounds for astir cumulative clip successful abstraction is held by cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, who spent astir 1,111 days successful orbit implicit 5 missions. The U.S. grounds is held by astronaut Peggy Whitson. She spent 675 days successful abstraction implicit 4 flights.
Don Pettit, NASA's oldest progressive astronaut, volition observe his 70th day with landing successful Kazakhstan.
NASA
As for Pettit's age, John Glenn, the archetypal American successful orbit, was 77 erstwhile helium flew aboard the abstraction shuttle successful 1998 arsenic a NASA spaceflight participant. He holds the grounds arsenic the oldest idiosyncratic to alert successful orbit.
From Kazakhstan, Ovchinin and Vagner volition caput backmost to Star City adjacent Moscow portion Pettit volition beryllium flown to the Johnson Space Center successful Houston for much elaborate tests and statesman his carnal rehabilitation.
The trio's instrumentality to Earth marked the last section successful an extended unit rotation that began with launch of SpaceX Crew 10 commandant Anne McClain, Nichole Ayers, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and cosmonaut Kirill Peskov connected March 14.
Crew 10's accomplishment astatine the presumption cleared the mode for Crew 9 commandant Nick Hague, cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov, Starliner commandant Barry "Butch" Wilmore and aviator Sunita Williams to return to Earth 4 days later.
The Russians past launched replacements for Pettit's crew — Soyuz commandant Sergey Ryzhikov, Alexey Zubritsky and NASA's Jonny Kim — connected April 8, clearing the mode for Ovchinin, Vagner and Pettit to instrumentality to Earth Saturday.
During a change-of-command ceremonial Friday, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, acold right, takes implicit from outgoing commandant Alexey Ovchinin, acold left. Dressed successful reddish shirts, Ovchinin, Don Pettit (second from left) and Ivan Vagner program to instrumentality to Earth Saturday (U.S. time) with a landing successful Kazakhstan.
NASA
In a little ceremonial Friday, Ovchinin turned bid of the presumption implicit to Onishi.
"It's a large grant for maine to judge the bid of the ISS," Onishi said. "I consciousness truthful peculiar that I americium taking implicit the bid from you due to the fact that it's been astir 9 years since we met present successful 2016 during Expedition 48. At that time, some of america were rookies and present we are 2 veterans who are ISS commanders."
"Human abstraction formation is not easy. Only continuous dedication from procreation to procreation made it imaginable for quality beings to get here. Now today, we person 4 rookies (on board). I'm definite 1 time they volition travel backmost and go commanders ... that's however we volition proceed to make quality abstraction flight," Onishi said.
The ISS has been continuously staffed by rotating crews since Nov. 2, 2000. Scheduled for status successful 5 years, the laboratory is facing problems connected aggregate fronts, ranging from aerial leaks successful the Russian conception to uncertain funding, spare parts shortages and resupply delays.
"Spaceflight is hard and precise risky," Rich Williams, a subordinate of NASA's autarkic Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, told the radical successful a nationalist gathering Thursday. "The ISS has entered the riskiest play of its existence."
"The ISS management, unit and enactment unit ever marque spaceflight look easy. Spaceflight is thing but easy, and the expanding risks attending the ISS programme are making it harder," Williams said.
The aerial leaks successful the Zvezda module's aft docking compartment are presumably the results of metallic fatigue and repeated unit cycles arsenic visiting Soyuz unit ships and Progress cargo freighters travel and go.
Pettit is wide admired arsenic an accomplished photographer, spending overmuch of his spare clip aboard the International Space Station photographing astronomical phenomena, auroral displays and beingness aboard the orbiting laboratory complex. In this shot, a clip vulnerability captures metropolis lights crossed Southeast Asia and the greenish glow from off-shore sportfishing boats.
NASA
"Primary hazard mitigation activities astatine this constituent see exertion and patching materials to known cracks and limiting ... pressurization cycles to effort to bounds accent and fatigue," Williams said. "The ISS programme is monitoring this closely, and the sheet considers this 1 of our highest concerns."
NASA has hired SpaceX to physique a U.S. deorbit vehicle, oregon USDV, to thrust the million-pound abstraction presumption backmost into the ambiance successful 2030 to guarantee it breaks up implicit the confederate Pacific Ocean, acold from shipping lanes and populated areas. The USDV is expected to get astatine the laboratory successful 2029.
"Delivering and utilizing this USDV capableness is captious to ensuring that the deorbit debris hazard meets the established authorities nationalist information standards," Williams said. "If determination is simply a deorbit of the ISS earlier the USDV is delivered, the hazard to the nationalist from ISS breakup debris volition summation by orders of magnitude."
He said NASA and Russian abstraction officials are moving "to code the challenges associated with achieving a harmless deorbit capability, some for end-of-life arsenic good arsenic a risk-managed deorbit for contingencies."
The large occupation facing the ISS is what Williams called "a ample ISS fund shortfall." NASA's fiscal 2024 fund included astir $1 cardinal for presumption operations and attraction with different $1.6 cardinal earmarked for unit launches and resupply missions.
"It is captious to support capable fund and resources until the conveyance has safely re-entered, not lone to guarantee information of day-to-day operations successful a high-risk environment, but besides to guarantee controlled, harmless deorbit wrong debris footprint requirements for the involvement of nationalist safety," Williams said.
In summary, helium said, "the sheet appreciates the demonstrated operational excellence of the ISS program, but remains profoundly acrophobic astir the expanding and cascading risks attending the programme implicit the adjacent respective years."
Bill Harwood has been covering the U.S. abstraction programme full-time since 1984, archetypal arsenic Cape Canaveral bureau main for United Press International and present arsenic a advisor for CBS News.
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