Two cosmonauts, NASA astronaut head for Wednesday landing after yearlong mission – Spaceflight Now
The returning Soyuz MS-23/69S crew (clockwise from upper left): NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, flight engineer Dmitri Petelin and commander Sergey Prokopyev. Image: NASA.
Outgoing space station commander Sergei Prokopyev and his two Soyuz crewmates, co-pilot Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, packed up Tuesday for a fiery plunge back to Earth early Wednesday to close out a yearlong stay in orbit, the longest flight in U.S. space history.
When the trio launched in September 2022, they expected to spend six months aboard the International Space Station, the normal tour of duty for a long-duration crew.
But a coolant leak disabled their Soyuz MS-22/68S ferry ship last December, prompting the Russians to launch a replacement — Soyuz MS-23/69S — last February. That meant Prokopyev, Pet...