NASA astronaut catches Russian ride back to Earth

Mark Vande Hei, 55, beat the U.S. record for the longest stint in space by 15 days after he and Russian astronauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov emerged from a Russian capsule in Kazakhstan on Wednesday. After they landed, a small NASA team of doctors examined Vande Hei before promptly taking him back to Houston. Vande Hei and Dubrov launched in April 2021 from Kazakhstan and orbited Earth 5,680 times on the International Space Station (ISS). He helped perform experiments on everything from muscle loss to growing chili peppers in space.

Why was he up there so long? Shkaplerov joined Vande Hei and Dubrov on the ISS in October, escorting a Russian film crew to make the first movie filmed in space. To accommodate that visit, Vande Hei and Dubrov doubled the length of their stay to 355 days. He avoided talking about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with his Russian shipmates, saying in space they are all one crew. This mission was twice as long as his last in 2018, and he said daily meditation helped him cope. NASA plans to study the effects of prolonged time in space on the body, collecting data for missions to the moon and Mars. 

Dig deeper: Read John Dawson’s report in Beginnings about Russia’s partnership with China to create a moon exploration station.