US Astronaut to Ride Russian Spacecraft Home During Tensions

US astronaut Mark Vande Hei has made it through nearly a year in space, but faces what could be his trickiest assignment yet: riding a Russian capsule back to Earth in the midst of deepening tensions between the countries.

NASA insists Vande Hei’s homecoming plans at the end of the month remain unchanged, even as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in canceled launches, broken contracts and an escalating war of words by the Russian Space Agency’s hardline leader. Many worry Dmitry Rogozin is putting decades of a peaceful off-the planet partnership at risk, most notably at the International Space Station.

Vande Hei — who on Tuesday breaks the US single spaceflight record of 340 days — is due to leave with two Russians aboard a Soyuz capsule for a touchdown in Kazakhstan on March 30. The astronaut will have logged 355 days in space by then, setting a new U.S. record. The world record of 438 continuous days in space belongs to Russia.

Retired NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, America’s record-holder until Tuesday, is among those sparring with Rogozin, a longtime ally of Vladimir Putin. Enraged by what’s going on in Ukraine, Kelly has returned his Russian medal for space exploration to the Russian Embassy in Washington.

Despite the deadly conflict down here, Kelly believes the two sides “can hold it together” up in space.

“We need an example set that two countries that historically have not been on the most friendly of terms, can still work somewhere peacefully. And that somewhere is the International Space Station. That’s why we need to fight to keep it,” Kelly told.