Live: Frank Rubio, the NASA astronaut who was stranded in space for more than a year, returns to Earth | Sciences

According to NASA, the landing will take 3 hours and 23 minutes. The spacecraft is scheduled to disengage from the International Space Station at 2:54 am, while landing will take place at 6:17 am.

In February 2023, NASA and Roscosmos agreed to send a spacecraft to rescue Frank Rubio and his Russian colleagues stranded on the International Space Station. In the following video, you can see how the spacecraft, called Soyuz MS-23, docked with the Russian module of the space laboratory.

Credits: YouTube/Video from Space

the Mission 69 It is the current long-duration mission to the International Space Station. It consists of 7 members of the permanent crew: Americans Frank Rubio, Stephen Bowen, and Warren Hoburg; The Russians Sergei Prokopyev, Dmitry Petlin, Andrei Fedyaev, and the Arab Sultan Al-Niyadi.

Rubio, Prokopyev, and Petilin were part of Expedition 68, but were stranded in the laboratory due to a malfunction in their ship. The other members then traveled on a SpaceX capsule.

According to Frank Rubio on the Spanish podcast “NASA’s Strange Universe“, on the International Space Station “You have to learn to hold your feet so you can work with your hands and every movement you make with your hands pushes back. So, you have to learn how to use force against this movement.

“It’s like learning to ride a bike again, although after a few weeks you can do it normally,” he said. He then emphasized that the most complicated thing for him was “handling objects in space, because when you open a suitcase, everything flies away.” “”.

The world record holder for longest stay in space currently holds Valery Polyakova former astronaut who spent a total of… 438 days On the Mir space station.

While on the International Space Station, Rubio worked on techniques for growing tomatoes without the need for soil, studied how certain materials burn in a microgravity environment, and participated in an experiment looking at how lack of exercise in space affects crew health. Among other tasks.

Image: NASA

In September 2022, Frank Rubio traveled to the International Space Station on a 6-month mission, ending in March of this year.

But a meteor struck the unit that was to bring him back and caused a leak in the cooling system, forcing him and his colleagues to extend their stay.

Soyuz MS-23, the variant of MS-22, is a Russian ship sent in February 2023 to the International Space Station on a rescue mission.

The capsule traveled uncrewed and in automatic mode to transport 450 kilograms of equipment, including accessories and food, to the Russian module attached to the space laboratory.

“Last Monday, Frank Rubio started his day replacing clogged pumps at the biomanufacturing facility. He also moved on to collecting biological samples for food physiology research, which is testing whether improved diet helps astronauts better adapt to flight. Finally, Rubio continued Preparations for departure. Before his return trip to Earth,” a NASA statement said.

Aboard the Soyuz MS-23 capsule, Rubio will be accompanied by astronauts Sergei Prokopyev and Dmitry Petlin, who were stranded in space for the same period of time.

Image: NASA