Soyuz Landing: O'Hara, Novitskiy & Vasilevskaya | International Space Station

Soyuz Landing: O'Hara, Novitskiy & Vasilevskaya | International Space Station

NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara ended her time in space with a parachute-assisted landing in the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft on the steppe of Kazakhstan, southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan, at 3:17 a.m. EDT (12:17 p.m. Kazakhstan time) Saturday, April 6, 2024.

O’Hara, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy of Russia, and cosmonaut Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus, began the journey back to Earth at 11:55 a.m. when the Soyuz undocked from the International Space Station.

This is the first space mission for a citizen of the Eastern European nation of Belarus. Vasilevskaya and O'Hara are on their first spaceflight missions.

Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest.

O’Hara arrived at the International Space Station on Sept. 15, 2023, spending 204 days in low Earth orbit.

During her 204 days aboard the station, O’Hara experienced:

Approximately 3,264 orbits of Earth

Approximately 86,555,554 statute miles traveled

Eight spacecraft visiting the International Space Station, including two Roscosmos Progress cargo ships, one Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo spacecraft, one Roscosmos Soyuz, two crewed SpaceX Dragons, and two uncrewed SpaceX Dragons.

An international partnership of space agencies provides and operates the elements of the International Space Station (ISS). The principals are the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan, and Canada. The ISS has been the most politically complex space exploration program ever undertaken.

Image Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Image Date: April 6, 2024

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