NASA reiterated this Monday (14) that collaboration between the United States and Russia on the International Space Station (ISS) remains normal, despite extreme tensions due to the war in Ukraine, and said that a American astronaut will return to Earth as planned at the end of the month aboard a Russian spacecraft.
Astronaut Mark Vande Hei, 55, prepares to return from the ISS in a Soyuz spacecraft on March 30 after 355 days in space, a new record for an American. The spacecraft will land in Kazakhstan and will also bring back Russian cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov.
“I can safely say that Mark will return aboard this Soyuz,” said Joel Montalbano, the station’s program director for NASA. “Our Russian colleagues have confirmed that they are prepared to bring back the full crew.”
Despite the tension between Washington and Moscow, the two countries will continue to work together to ensure the operation of the ISS. “Nothing has changed in the last three weeks,” Montalbano said. “The control centers continue to run smoothly.”
This weekend, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, declared that Western sanctions against Russia could disrupt the operation of Russian spacecraft and cause the station’s downfall.
The thrusters of Russian spacecraft docked at the ISS are used to correct the orbit of the space structure. A procedure that is performed about ten times a year to keep it at the right altitude, or to avoid space debris in its path.
Alone, the Americans do not have this capacity, confirmed Montalbano. “The Space Station was designed on the principle of interdependence (…) It’s not a process where one group can separate from the other.”
“Currently, there are no indications that our Russian partners want to do things differently. Therefore, we plan to continue operations as we do today,” he said.
The director also confirmed that the exchange scheduled for the fall — the sending to the ISS of a Russian cosmonaut with a SpaceX spacecraft and that of a NASA astronaut with a Soyuz — is still on the table.
The International Space Station currently houses two Russians, four Americans and one German.
“Are they aware of what is happening on Earth? Absolutely,” explained Montalbano. But the astronauts are “professional” and “there’s no tension between the crew. They’ve been trained to do a job and they’re up there doing it.”
