Nasa confirms astronaut will return from space station on Russian spacecraft

Despite tensions between the US and Kremlin, Mark Vande Hei still has ride home from space station

Despite the collapse in Russia-US relations over Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Nasa officials have confirmed International Space Station astronaut Mark Vande Hai will return to Earth as scheduled on 30 March aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Nasa’s ISS manager Joel Montalbano confirmed that Col Vande Hei — a retired US Army colonel — would have a ride during a press conference on Monday, Reuters reports.

Russian officials have also confirmed they will bring Col Vande Hai home, along with two Russian cosmonauts aboard the ISS, despite the head of the Russian space agency, Dmitry Rogozin, hinting on social media that his organization might strand Col Vande Hei.

Col Vande Hei will land in Kazakhstan after 355 consecutive days in space, a new US record.

Russia has pulled out of most of its cooperative space operations with the west since Europe and the US levied sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, has canceled launches and pulled staff from the European spaceport in French Guiana, stopped rocket engines sales to US customers, and canceled scheduled commercial launches for western clients such as satellite internet company OneWeb.

Mr Rogozin has taken to social media, and Russian state media, to express even more strident views than have manifested in actual Russian policy, telling US astronauts to shut up, suggesting American astronauts ride “broomsticks” to space, and threatening to pull Russia out of the ISS program entirely.

But the ISS remains the one area where Russia, Europe, and the US still cooperate in space, and Mr Montalbano confirmed that the return of Col Vande Hei reflects ongoing cooperation and not the final act of a fractured partnership.

“We both need each other to operate the International Space Station," Mr Montalbano said at the press conference.

A spacewalk by two astronauts, the main topic of the press conference, took place as scheduled on Tuesday.

A press statement from Roscosmos echoed Mr Montalbano’s sentiment.

“US astronaut Mark Vande Hei will travel back home in the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft together with Russia’s Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov on March 30,” the statement said. “Roscosmos has never let anybody doubt its reliability as a partner.”

Maintaining a reputation for reliability may be difficult for Roscosmos, which has been plagued with corruption allegations in recent years, and will feel the pressure of US sanctions president Joe Biden said were intended to “degrade” Russia’s space program.

It’s also not clear if and how the space agency will weather the loss of revenue from the pullout of commercial clients such as OneWeb, the Russian space agency having little domestic space activity outside of launches for foreign partners.

The joint European Space Agency-Roscosmos mission to Mars scheduled for this year, ExoMars, is now “very unlikely,” according to ESA.