Guess who's back on Earth? 🌍 The Soyuz MS-24 capsule just made a stellar landing in the Kazakh steppe, bringing home three astronauts after their cosmic adventures aboard the International Space Station (ISS)!
Touching down at 12:17 p.m. Kazakh time (that's 0717 GMT for all you time travelers ⏰), the capsule carried Russia's Oleg Novitsky, NASA's Loral O'Hara, and Marina Vasilevskaya from Belarus. They landed southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan, greeted by a breathtaking expanse of golden grasslands. 🌾
The trio had quite the journey! O'Hara arrived at the ISS on September 15, 2023, spending a total of 204 days floating among the stars. Talk about an extended staycation! 🛸
As for Novitsky and Vasilevskaya, they blasted off on March 23 after a slight hiccup—their original launch was scheduled for March 21 but got postponed at the last minute due to a voltage drop in a power source. ⚡️ According to Yury Borisov, head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, this delay turned their trip to the ISS into a two-day, 34-orbit detour around Earth. If things had gone as planned, they'd have been there in just two orbits! Talk about taking the scenic route. 🌍
Meanwhile, up on the ISS, the adventure continues for those still aboard: NASA astronauts Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Tracy Dyson, and Jeannette Epps, along with Russian cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin, and Oleg Kononenko. They've got the whole galaxy to themselves—for now! 🌌
Russia continues to depend on their reliable Soyuz spacecraft—yep, the ones built on those tried-and-true Soviet-era designs—to ferry crews and cargo to the ISS. Oldies but goodies, right? 🚀
Welcome home, space travelers! The stars will be waiting for your return. ✨
Reference(s):
Soyuz capsule carrying 3 crew from ISS lands safely in Kazakhstan
cgtn.com
