Russian, US crew touch down after space station stint

ALMATY (Kazakhstan) • Two Russian cosmonauts and a Nasa astronaut touched down yesterday on the steppe of Kazakhstan following a half-year mission on the International Space Station (ISS), footage broadcast by the Russian space agency showed.

Mr Sergei Ryzhikov and Mr Sergei Kud-Sverchkov, as well as American Kate Rubins, landed on barren land at 0455 GMT (12.55pm Singapore time) around 150km south-east of the town of Zhezkazgan.

The Soyuz descent module carrying the trio landed upright after descending through a cloudless sky on a fine spring day, a Roscosmos TV commentator confirmed.

Molecular biologist Rubins, 42, and former military pilot Ryzhikov, 46, were rounding off their second missions, having made their ISS debuts following launches in July and October of 2016, respectively.

Mr Kud-Sverchkov, 39, another former military man, was completing his first mission.

Footage from the landing site showed Dr Rubins smiling as she received a bouquet of flowers from retired cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko. "It is great to be on this side of things," she said.

She will return to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) hub in Houston while colleagues Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov are bound for Moscow as they wind down their missions.

For the last decade, the space station's population has typically varied between three and six as crews that blasted off from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan came and went.

Entrepreneur Elon Musk's SpaceX last year broke the monopoly that Russia and Baikonur had held on manned launches since the mothballing of the United States shuttle programme in 2011, beginning a new chapter of space flights from American soil.

The number of crew on board the ISS will reach 11 this week with the arrival of Nasa's SpaceX Crew-2 mission team.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE