A joint U.S.-Russian crew consisting of NASA astronaut Chris Williams, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Kud-Sverchkov, and Russian cosmonaut Sergei Mikaev successfully landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday following their eight-month deployment on the International Space Station. The trio returned aboard their Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, which descended via parachute to a designated landing zone southeast of Dzhezkazgan. The 241-day mission marked a debut spaceflight for both Williams and Mikaev, while Kud-Sverchkov was undertaking his second mission to the orbiting facility.
Following their landing, the crew was scheduled to be transported by helicopter to Karaganda for subsequent travel. Williams was expected to fly to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, while his Russian colleagues planned to return to their training facility near Moscow in Star City. The mission continued a pattern of continued cooperation between U.S. and Russian space agencies, despite broader geopolitical tensions that emerged after military actions in Ukraine in 2022.
The successful landing coincided with fresh crew arrivals at the station. On July 14, a new expedition team including NASA astronaut Anil Menon and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome to begin their own eight-month tenure. The launch was attended by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, marking the first visit to the facility by a NASA administrator in eight years. The newly arrived crew joined astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway of NASA, Sophie Adenot of the European Space Agency, and cosmonaut Andrei Fedyaev as members of Expedition 75 aboard the orbital laboratory.
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