Another notable event that happened this week was the return of the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft to Earth with the two Sergei’s, Ryzhikov and Kud-Sverchkov, and NASA’s Kate Rubin. The three boarded their Soyuz spacecraft and undocked from the station at 01:34 UTC on April 17. 

After several orbits gaining distance from the ISS, Soyuz MS-17 conducted its deorbit burn at 04:01 UTC. The nearly five-minute burn imparted a retrograde velocity change of 128 meters per second, just enough to pull the spacecraft back to Earth and land at the primary landing site of Dzezkazgan, Kazakhstan, some 54 minutes later. The landing was during the late morning local time, and the Roscosmos recovery team tracked the descending capsule from parachute deployment to the ground. The three returning astronauts were then helped out of the capsule into a waiting medical tent. After their checkup, the cosmonauts headed back to Moscow and Kate started her way back to Houston on a NASA jet.

More Information

NASA press release