Capsule carrying 2 Russians and 1 American returns to Earth from space station

MOSCOW — A Soyuz capsule carrying two Russians and an American from the International Space Station landed in Kazakhstan on Monday, ending a record-breaking stay for the Russian duo.

The capsule landed in the Kazakh steppe about 3 1/2 hours after undocking from the ISS, in an apparently uneventful descent.

Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub returned to the space station after 374 days, the longest continuous stay on board. American Tracy Dyson, who spent six months on the space station, was also on board the capsule.

THIS IS BREAKING NEWS. The previous AP article is reprinted below.

A Russian space capsule detached from the International Space Station on Monday to return three astronauts to Earth, two of them making a record-breaking stay in the orbiting laboratory.

The capsule carrying Russians Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and American Tracy Dyson is expected to land in the vast steppe of Kazakhstan about 3.5 hours after undocking.

Kononenko and Chub launched to the space station on September 15, 2023, and on Friday set the record for the longest continuous mission aboard the ISS. Dyson, on his third mission to space, spent six months aboard.

Eight astronauts remain on board the space station, including Americans Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who stayed well beyond the scheduled time of return to Earth.

They arrived in June as the first crew of Boeing’s new Starliner capsule. But their journey was marred by thruster problems and helium leaks, and the US space agency NASA decided it was too risky to bring them back aboard Starliner.

The two astronauts I’ll be coming home with SpaceX next year.