A record-breaking US astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts returned to Earth from the International Space Station Wednesday, with tensions between Moscow and the West soaring over Ukraine.
“The crew of Roscosmos cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, as well as NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei, has returned to Earth,” Russia’s space agency Roscosmos said in a statement.
Footage broadcast from the landing site in Kazakhstan showed the Soyuz descent module touching down at the expected time of 11:28 GMT in bright conditions before the crew emerged from the vehicle that had blown onto its side.
“Tasty!” said Shkaplerov, the first man out of the descent module, as he sat sipping a tea provided by recovery staff.
NASA’s Mark Vande Hei emerged from the vehicle last, after setting a new record for the single longest spaceflight by a NASA astronaut, clocking 355 days aboard the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei after the landing of the Soyuz MS-19 space capsule. (Bill Ingalls/NASA/AFP)
Cosmonaut Dubrov, with whom he blasted off from Baikonur in April last year, now holds the record for the longest mission by a Russian at the ISS, although four cosmonauts clocked longer stints at the now-defunct Mir space station, which was the world’s first continuously inhabited orbital lab.
Shkaplerov was rounding off a standard six-month mission.
US, Russia relations in tatters
Relations between Moscow and Washington have been in tatters since the Kremlin launched an invasion of Ukraine last month, killing thousands and forcing 4 million people to flee the country.
Space was one of the few areas of cooperation between Russia and the West untouched by the fallout of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, but here, too, tensions are growing.
The ISS, a collaboration between the US, Canada, Japan, the European Space Agency and Russia, is expected to be wound up in the next decade.
Last month, Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin, an avid supporter of what Moscow has called a “special military operation” in Ukraine, suggested that Western sanctions targeting Russia in response had put the orbital lab in jeopardy.
“If you block cooperation with us, who will save the ISS from uncontrolled deorbiting and falling on US or European territory?” Rogozin wrote in a tweet last month – noting that the station does not fly over much of Russia.
At present, the ISS depends on a Russian propulsion system to maintain its orbit, some 250 miles (400 kilometers) above sea level, with the US segment is responsible for electricity and life support systems – interdependencies that were woven into the project from its inception in the 1990s.
The Soyuz MS-19 space capsule’s touchdown, Kazakhstan, 30 March 2022. (Irina Spektor/Russian Space Agency Roscomos/AFP)
War opposition
ISS astronauts and cosmonauts traditionally steer clear of politics, stressing the need for cooperation to further humanity’s goals in space.
But at least two retired heavyweights of the space world, US astronaut Scott Kelly and Russia’s Gennady Padalka have responded to the invasion with criticism.
Kelly, who held the NASA spaceflight record before it was broken by Vande Hei earlier this month, said he had returned a medal awarded to him by the Russian government in 2011.
“Please, give (the medal) to Russian mothers whose sons have been killed in this unjust war,” Kelly said in a tweet addressed to Russia’s former president and current deputy security council chairman Dmitry Medvedev earlier this month.
Господин Медведев, я возвращаю Вам российскую медаль “За заслуги в освоении космоса», которую вы мне вручили. Пожалуйста, отдайте его русской матери, чей сын погиб в этой несправедливой войне. Я отправлю медаль по почте в посольство России в Вашингтоне. Удачи. https://t.co/n8jMTX34pWpic.twitter.com/qpI1YNKps3
Kelly’s former ISS commander Gennady Padalka, also appeared to criticize the invasion in an interview with private Russian media this month.
“One thing is clear to me: authorities, regimes, ideologies come and go, but Russia and Ukraine will always be next to each other. We cannot be separated onto different planets,” Padalka told liberal newspaper Novaya Gazeta.
He expressed concern that Russia’s invasion meant that Ukrainians would view current and future Russian generations with “hatred”.
Padalka, 63, holds the world record for cumulative days spent in space – 879 – and is a Hero of the Russian Federation.
NASA on Wednesday hailed its own record-breaker, Vande Hei, with the agency’s administrator Bill Nelson noting in a statement that his mission was “paving the way for future human explorers on the Moon, Mars, and beyond.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
