An American-Russian crew returns to Earth after 241 days in space

NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev landed Sunday in Kazakhstan aboard the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, after spending eight months aboard the International Space Station.

The return was uneventful. The Soyuz MS-28 capsule touched down on Kazakh soil at approximately 3:27 p.m. local time, southeast of Dzhezkazgan, concluding a 241-day mission during which the crew completed 3,856 orbits around the Earth and traveled over 102 million miles.

On the American side, Chris Williams conducted research on new cancer treatments and worked to improve the in-orbit manufacturing of materials for high-performance computers and electronic devices. He also performed two spacewalks to prepare for the modernization of the station's power system and to replace a faulty joint on the Canadarm2 robotic arm.

On the Russian side, the ISS 74 mission included a spacewalk to install equipment related to the Sun-Terahertz experiment, which aims to study the Sun's terahertz radiation. The crew also received two Progress MS cargo spacecraft carrying water, fuel, and atmospheric gases necessary for life aboard the station, according to Roscosmos.

After medical examinations on site, the three crew members are to be flown to Karaganda, in central Kazakhstan. Williams will then travel to the Johnson Space Center in Houston aboard a NASA aircraft, while Kud-Sverchkov and Mikaev are expected at the Star City training center near Moscow.

Their replacements are already in place. NASA astronaut Anil Menon and cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina arrived at the ISS earlier this month aboard Soyuz MS-29. They joined Jessica Meir, Jack Hathaway, European astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Andrey Fedyaev to launch Expedition 75, which is scheduled to run until spring 2027. The program includes in-orbit manufacturing, augmented reality, artificial intelligence applied to monitoring astronaut health, and bioprinting of human tissue.