Mark Vande Hey, NASA Astronaut Who Breaks Record 355 Days On The ISS Returns To Earth

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei has made it back to Earth. (photo: doc. Nasa)

JAKARTA - After spending 355 days on the International Space Station (ISS) and breaking records, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei has returned to Earth.

Vande Hei landed in Russia's Soyuz capsule in Kazakhstan with Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov of the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos), who also spent a year in space.

Despite rising tensions between the United States and Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, Vande Hei's return follows usual procedures.

"People have problems on Earth. (But) in orbit, we are one crew. Friendship and cooperation and the future of space exploration," said Shkaplerov.

Citing Space, Thursday, March 31, when Vande Hei had landed, he was picked up by a small team of doctors and NASA staff ready to take the 55-year-old astronaut to Houston.

Later, Vande Hei will undergo medical tests during his stay on Earth to continue NASA research that brings astronauts back to the Moon and Planet Mars. He said daily meditation helped him complete the mission, twice as long as his first station assignment four years earlier.

Vande Hei completed a 355-day mission on the ISS, the longest voyage an American had ever made across the last frontier. The previous record was held by NASA's Scott Kelly, who spent 340 days aboard the orbiting lab from March 2015 to March 2016.

While Dubrov also came home after 355 days in space, he didn't break the record. Previously there was Valery Polyakov who lived on the Russian space station Mir from January 1994 to March 1995, spending 437 consecutive days beyond Earth.

The world has changed a lot while Vande Hei, Shkaplerov, Dubrov, and their comrades are on the ISS. For example, relations between Moscow and Washington are now much more strained, over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

However, NASA is adamant that ISS operations will continue as normal despite the invasion and economic sanctions imposed by the US and other countries on Russia in response.

For information, NASA's next mission is next week, with the agency relying on SpaceX to fly three wealthy businessmen and their former astronaut companion to the ISS for a week-long visit arranged by Axiom Space.