HOUSTON (NASA PR) — After extending the record for the longest single spaceflight in history by an American to 355 days, NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei returned to Earth on Wednesday, March 30, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov.

The trio departed the International Space Station at 3:21 a.m. EDT and made a safe, parachute-assisted landing at 7:28 a.m. (5:28 p.m. Kazakhstan time) southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan.

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by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

A Norwegian industrial designer is continuing to train to fly to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Roscosmos Soyuz spacecraft and perform a commercial spacewalk amid Western sanctions over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Nima Shahinian has been training at Russia’s Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City for a voyage to ISS at the end of next year. Shahinian — who is an industrial designer lead at Designit Oslo, a father of two and an Afghanistan veteran — is a client of the U.S. company Space Adventures.

MOSCOW (Roscosmos PR) — Director General of the Progress Rocket and Space Center (Samara, part of the Roscosmos State Corporation) Dmitry Baranov summed up the results of the enterprise’s work in 2021 and spoke about plans for the future.

MOSCOW (Roscosmos PR) — Two months ago, Oleg Novitsky returned from his third space flight to the ISS. The commander of the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft shared with the readers of the State Corporation Roscosmos magazine – Russian Space – his impressions of the expedition. It cannot be called boring in any way: three spacewalks, the meeting and integration of the new Science module and, of course, an amazing week and a half spent side by side with the world’s first film crew.

BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan (Roscosmos PR) — Baikonur Cosmodrome continues preparations for launching the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket with the Soyuz MS-20 crewed spacecraft. On the previous day, the Soyuz-2.1a/Soyuz MS-20 rocket was rolled out to the Site 31 launchpad (‘Vostok’), after which Roscosmos specialists conducted work on the L-3 day schedule, no issues were revealed.

BAIKONUR COSMODROME, Kazakhstan (Rocosmos PR) — During each long half-year expedition to the International Space Station, Russian cosmonauts conduct more than fifty experiments in various scientific fields. However, for space medicine, even a short flight is a source of information for the development of means and methods for maintaining the health of crews in zero gravity.

MOSCOW (Roscosmos PR) — The Chief Medical Commission meeting was held at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC) to analyze medical examination data of the cosmonauts and the spaceflight participants of the 20th visiting expedition to the International Space Station. The Commission consisted of the representatives of GCTC, Roscosmos, Federal Medico-Biological Agency, Institute of Medical and Biological Problems of Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Ministry of Health and Russian Ministry […]

STAR CITY, Russia (Roscosmos PR) — At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (GCTC), four newly admitted Cosmonaut Squad members were introduced to the Center staff. Sergey Teteryatnikov, Alexander Kolyabin, Sergey Irtuganov and Harutyun Kiviryan are cosmonaut candidates of the 2020 open enrollment.

MOSCOW (Roscosmos PR) — On Monday, the crew of the feature film tentatively titled “Vyzov” (“The Challenge”) began preparations for the flight to the International Space Station in October at the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center (CTC). Director Klim Shipenko and actress Yulia Peresild started training, together with their backups Alexey Dudin and Alena Mordovina.

Roscosmos cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov will be commander of the ISS-66 prime crew, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev is his backup. The crew commanders have already started training, as the cosmonaut who will take the film crew to the ISS will have to stay there and carry out his immediate duties for six months.

The director and actress will go into orbit as spaceflight participants for a much shorter period. According to preliminary data, the film crew of the “The Challenge” will stay at the International Space Station for less than two weeks. Their preflight training program differs from the training plan for professional cosmonauts, but includes elements that are mandatory for all crew members.

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — NASA has assigned astronaut Mark Vande Hei to an upcoming mission to the International Space Station as a flight engineer and member of the Expedition 64/65 crew. Vande Hei, along with cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, are scheduled to launch Friday, April 9, on the Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.