[ad_1]
Three astronauts returned to Earth on Thursday after a turbulent period on the International Space Station (ISS), marked by an oxygen leak and the inability to launch a rocket to carry an airplane.
"The crews of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft returned without incident to Earth after 197 days in space," announced the Russian space agency Roscosmos on Twitter.
The ship carrying the German Alexander Gerst The US Serena Auñón-Chancellor (Nasa) and the Russian Serguei Prokopiev (Roscosmos), the European Space Agency (ESA), landed a little more earlier than expected, at 8:02 Moscow time (3H02)
NASA announced that search and rescue helicopters were at the landing site in Kazakhstan to evacuate the crew.
"The crew is well after returning to Earth," he told Roscosmos. When the astronauts took off in June, the trio was one of the least experienced teams to visit the International Space Station: Alexander Gerst was the only one to have participated in a mission in 2014.
The first incident major occurred on August 30, when an oxygen leak was detected due to a tiny hole in the Soyuz, which was coupled with the ISS.
The problem was successfully solved, but Russia opened an investigation after Dmitry Rogozin, director of Roscosmos, had mentioned the sabotage hypothesis and a possible "premeditated act" on Earth or in the 39; space.
Rogozin later claimed that investigators had ruled out the possibility of a manufacturing failure. In the past, Sergei Prokopiev and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko escaped into space to inspect the location of the hole, which caused a slight depressurization of the orbital station in August, as well as to obtain samples of the waste found and images of the region
. The hole was in a part of the ship that would be decoupled and burn in the atmosphere when returning, which made it necessary to collect evidence in the space.
The crew returned to Earth with the evidence. The return of Serguei Prokopiev, Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Alexander Gerst was scheduled for December 13, but was to be postponed after the failure of the launch of a Soyuz rocket on October 11 and the return to Earth of his two American crew members. Nick Hague and the Russian Alexei Ovchinin
This was the first aborted launch of the post-Soviet era.
December 3, a new International Space Station, an unusual example of cooperation between Russia and the United States in a context of unprecedented tensions since the war.
The International Space Station, an unusual example of cooperation between Russia and the United States in a context of unprecedented tensions since the war. It has been in orbit since 1998 at a speed of 28,000 km / h
The project has the participation of 16 countries, but its total cost of $ 100 billion is paid mainly by the United States and Russia
.
[ad_2]
Source link