International News

ASTANA, Kazakhstan, June 2, (APP/AFP) – A Soyuz
MS-03 spacecraft carrying French astronaut Thomas Pesquet and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy landed on the Kazakh steppe Friday, ending
their marathon 196-day mission to the International Space Station.
“All is well. The landing has taken place. Now the cosmonauts
will be evacuated from the capsule,” a spokesman for Russian mission
control told AFP.
The pair had undocked as the International Space Station (ISS)
orbited above the Chinese-Mongolian border, marking the beginning of a 400-kilometre (250-mile) descent back to Earth lasting just over three hours.
For Pesquet, a first-time astronaut, the 196-day trip fell just
shy of breaking the record for a space mission by a European Space
Agency astronaut. Samantha Cristoforetti of Italy spent 199 days on
her mission in 2015.
“It’s been a fantastic adventure and amazing ride,” 39-year-old
Pesquet tweeted a few hours before the undocking.
Former Russian Air Force pilot Oleg Novitskiy, 45, was completing
his second mission to the ISS.
Nasa TV footage showed the pair being attended to by Russian and
European crews on the ground after being quickly lifted out of the craft.
The $100 billion ISS space laboratory has been orbiting Earth at
about 28,000 kilometres per hour (17,000 miles per hour) since 1998.