The Prague Post - Russian, US ISS record-holders return to Earth

EUR -
AED 4.297386
AFN 80.467794
ALL 97.872991
AMD 449.276016
ANG 2.093835
AOA 1072.87855
ARS 1467.774
AUD 1.79417
AWG 2.105977
AZN 1.99308
BAM 1.95526
BBD 2.362148
BDT 142.610645
BGN 1.95341
BHD 0.441082
BIF 3485.738063
BMD 1.169987
BND 1.498686
BOB 8.083769
BRL 6.389882
BSD 1.170177
BTN 100.206347
BWP 15.630686
BYN 3.828643
BYR 22931.747673
BZD 2.349951
CAD 1.603134
CDF 3376.582946
CHF 0.932365
CLF 0.028717
CLP 1101.998998
CNY 8.393546
CNH 8.406738
COP 4735.253796
CRC 590.037171
CUC 1.169987
CUP 31.004659
CVE 110.234579
CZK 24.625904
DJF 208.332508
DKK 7.460961
DOP 70.150641
DZD 151.929827
EGP 57.984618
ERN 17.549807
ETB 162.324104
FJD 2.632178
FKP 0.862008
GBP 0.861461
GEL 3.170538
GGP 0.862008
GHS 12.196634
GIP 0.862008
GMD 83.658829
GNF 10152.198363
GTQ 8.991519
GYD 244.652485
HKD 9.184381
HNL 30.591558
HRK 7.536123
HTG 153.547626
HUF 400.232743
IDR 19026.213647
ILS 3.896431
IMP 0.862008
INR 100.28843
IQD 1532.577065
IRR 49285.708304
ISK 143.592463
JEP 0.862008
JMD 187.01839
JOD 0.829496
JPY 171.614881
KES 151.302566
KGS 102.315607
KHR 4697.703605
KMF 491.981368
KPW 1052.96269
KRW 1610.124358
KWD 0.357431
KYD 0.974931
KZT 606.702572
LAK 25207.043774
LBP 104823.272594
LKR 351.71294
LRD 234.565269
LSL 20.853045
LTL 3.454667
LVL 0.707714
LYD 6.327254
MAD 10.536492
MDL 19.829528
MGA 5178.570903
MKD 61.560368
MMK 2456.396613
MNT 4198.568016
MOP 9.45949
MRU 46.609138
MUR 52.988436
MVR 18.008171
MWK 2028.640169
MXN 21.750529
MYR 4.973033
MZN 74.832044
NAD 20.853045
NGN 1791.413783
NIO 43.04812
NOK 11.832671
NPR 160.329755
NZD 1.954352
OMR 0.449862
PAB 1.169877
PEN 4.153154
PGK 4.907646
PHP 66.185592
PKR 332.690889
PLN 4.239363
PYG 9067.497701
QAR 4.265823
RON 5.07751
RSD 117.146123
RUB 91.553884
RWF 1690.533474
SAR 4.388258
SBD 9.754094
SCR 17.167074
SDG 702.586203
SEK 11.164573
SGD 1.49914
SHP 0.919426
SLE 26.319802
SLL 24534.049329
SOS 668.615486
SRD 43.668022
STD 24216.371317
SVC 10.236175
SYP 15212.324544
SZL 20.852246
THB 38.284904
TJS 11.318776
TMT 4.106655
TND 3.421656
TOP 2.740225
TRY 46.847337
TTD 7.943808
TWD 34.138818
TZS 3074.142413
UAH 48.899605
UGX 4199.840997
USD 1.169987
UYU 47.326939
UZS 14871.895898
VES 131.375283
VND 30582.293491
VUV 139.584055
WST 3.221398
XAF 655.77603
XAG 0.032055
XAU 0.000356
XCD 3.161949
XDR 0.814409
XOF 655.77603
XPF 119.331742
YER 282.961125
ZAR 20.869148
ZMK 10531.287412
ZMW 28.458147
ZWL 376.735377
  • CMSC

    0.0900

    22.314

    +0.4%

  • CMSD

    0.0250

    22.285

    +0.11%

  • RBGPF

    0.0000

    69.04

    0%

  • SCS

    0.0400

    10.74

    +0.37%

  • RELX

    0.0300

    53

    +0.06%

  • RIO

    -0.1400

    59.33

    -0.24%

  • GSK

    0.1300

    41.45

    +0.31%

  • NGG

    0.2700

    71.48

    +0.38%

  • BP

    0.1750

    30.4

    +0.58%

  • BTI

    0.7150

    48.215

    +1.48%

  • BCC

    0.7900

    91.02

    +0.87%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    13.13

    +0.15%

  • VOD

    0.0100

    9.85

    +0.1%

  • BCE

    -0.0600

    22.445

    -0.27%

  • RYCEF

    0.1000

    12

    +0.83%

  • AZN

    -0.1200

    73.71

    -0.16%

Russian, US ISS record-holders return to Earth
Russian, US ISS record-holders return to Earth

Russian, US ISS record-holders return to Earth

A record-breaking US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts returned to Earth from the International Space Station Wednesday, with tensions between Moscow and the West soaring over Ukraine.

Text size:

"The crew of Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, as well as NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, has returned to Earth," Russia's space agency Roscosmos said in a statement.

Footage broadcast from the landing site in Kazakhstan showed the Soyuz descent module touching down at the expected time of 1128 GMT in bright conditions before the crew emerged from the vehicle that had blown onto its side.

"Tasty!" said Shkaplerov, the first man out of the descent module, as he sat sipping a tea provided by recovery staff.

NASA's Mark Vande Hei emerged from the vehicle last, after setting a new record for the single longest spaceflight by a NASA astronaut, clocking 355 days aboard the International Space Station.

Cosmonaut Dubrov, with whom he blasted off from Baikonur in April last year, now holds the record for the longest mission by a Russian at the ISS, although four cosmonauts clocked longer stints at the now-defunct Mir space station, which was the world's first continuously inhabited orbital lab.

Shkaplerov was rounding off a standard six-month mission.

- US, Russia relations in tatters -

Relations between Moscow and Washington have been in tatters since the Kremlin launched an invasion of Ukraine last month, killing thousands and forcing four million people to flee the country.

Space was one of the few areas of cooperation between Russia and the West untouched by the fallout of Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, but here, too, tensions are growing.

The ISS, a collaboration between the US, Canada, Japan, the European Space Agency and Russia, is expected to be wound up in the next decade.

Last month, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin, an avid supporter of what Moscow has called a "special military operation" in Ukraine, suggested that Western sanctions targeting Russia in response had put the orbital lab in jeopardy.

"If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from uncontrolled deorbiting and falling on US or European territory?" Rogozin wrote in a tweet last month -- noting that the station does not fly over much of Russia.

At present, the ISS depends on a Russian propulsion system to maintain its orbit, some 250 miles (400 kilometres) above sea level, with the US segment responsible for electricity and life support systems -- interdependencies that were woven into the project from its inception in the 1990s.

- War opposition -

ISS astronauts and cosmonauts traditionally steer clear of politics, stressing the need for cooperation to further humanity's goals in space.

But at least two retired heavyweights of the space world, US astronaut Scott Kelly and Russia's Gennady Padalka have responded to the invasion with criticism.

Kelly, who held the NASA spaceflight record before it was broken by Vande Hei earlier this month, said he had returned a medal awarded to him by the Russian government in 2011.

"Please, give (the medal) to Russian mothers whose sons have been killed in this unjust war," Kelly said in a tweet addressed to Russia's former president and current deputy security council chairman Dmitry Medvedev earlier this month.

Kelly's former ISS commander Gennady Padalka, also appeared to criticise the invasion in an interview with private Russian media this month.

"One thing is clear to me: authorities, regimes, ideologies come and go, but Russia and Ukraine will always be next to each other. We cannot be separated onto different planets," Padalka told liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta.

Padalka, 63, holds the world record for cumulative days spent in space -- 879 -- and is a Hero of the Russian Federation.

NASA on Wednesday hailed its own record-breaker, Vande Hei, with the agency's administrator Bill Nelson noting in a statement that his mission was "paving the way for future human explorers on the Moon, Mars, and beyond."

W.Urban--TPP