Report-breaking NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei is about to return to Earth from the Worldwide Area Station on early March thirtieth, coming again in a Russian Soyuz rocket together with two Russian cosmonauts. His scheduled journey again to the planet has been an ongoing supply of strife these previous few weeks, as tensions have dramatically soured between the USA and Russia after the latter’s invasion of Ukraine.

Vande Hei has been on the ISS since April 2021, when he launched from Kazakhstan on one other Soyuz rocket. He was initially going to remain on board for simply six months, the usual size of keep for many astronauts on the ISS. However in September, NASA announced that Vande Hei’s stay had been extended to higher accommodate just a few visiting vacationers and a Russian film crew that Russia despatched to the ISS on the finish of final 12 months. Due to the extension, Vande Hei will maintain the document for the longest steady keep in area by an American: 355 days.

The plan has all the time been for Vande Hei to return again to Earth in a Russian Soyuz, although he’ll be returning in a distinct capsule than the one he launched in. However after Russia started its invasion of Ukraine in February, some rapidly puzzled what that might imply for Vande Hei’s journey. Early into the invasion, NASA assured the general public that the area company and Russia’s state area company, Roscosmos, continued to work collectively to keep up regular operations of the area station. And NASA famous that Vande Hei was nonetheless coming dwelling in a Soyuz as deliberate.

Nevertheless, issues took a activate March fifth when RIA Novosti, a Russian state information program, shared a video on Telegram that included footage of Vande Hei on the ISS, in addition to Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov, the 2 Russian cosmonauts with whom he’s alleged to return to Earth. The video was edited in such a approach to make it seem to be the cosmonauts have been going to depart Vande Hei behind in area. The video then depicted all the Russian portion of the area station detaching from the remainder of the ISS.

RIA Novosti described the video as a joke, however some media retailers took the depictions severely, decoding the footage as Russia threatening to strand Vande Hei in area. It didn’t assist that Dmitry Rogozin, the pinnacle of Roscosmos, additionally shared the video to his Telegram channel. Rogozin has been making a myriad of untamed threats concerning the Russian-US area partnership because the invasion started, at one level insinuating that the ISS may come crashing down on Earth if Russia pulled out of this system.

After Good Morning America and Fox Information speculated about Vande Hei being left on the ISS, Russia formally denied the hypothesis. “The US astronaut because of return to Earth quickly will accomplish that as scheduled on board Russia’s area capsule car on March 30,” a report in TASS, one other Russian state information group, wrote.

NASA additionally reiterated that operations would proceed as regular in a press convention on March 14th. “The truth is Mark Vande Hei is coming dwelling on March thirtieth with Anton [Shkaplerov] and Pyotr [Dubrov]. Interval,” Joel Montalbano, the ISS program supervisor at NASA, stated through the convention when requested concerning the video’s supposed menace. “There’s actually not a lot so as to add on that. Now we have affirmation from our Russian colleagues.” Montalbano additionally confused that NASA and Roscosmos want one another to proceed working the area station, and that there have been no rapid plans to finish that partnership. “We’re not seeing any impacts of what’s happening round us. … We’re conscious of what’s happening, however we’re capable of do our job to proceed operations,” he stated.

Vande Hei and his two cosmonaut crewmates will say their farewells to the remainder of the astronauts on the ISS round 12AM ET, earlier than coming into the Soyuz and shutting the capsule’s hatch. The Soyuz will then detach from the area station round 3:21AM ET and slowly distance itself from the ISS. The capsule will ultimately carry out a burn of its thrusters to take itself out of orbit, setting itself on track to land in Kazakhstan beneath parachutes at round 7:28AM ET. As soon as on the bottom, Vande Hei will return again to Houston, Texas, on a NASA Gulfstream jet — the identical process for all earlier astronauts coming back from the ISS within the Soyuz. NASA plans to supply dwell protection of every main milestone beginning at 11:30PM ET tonight.

Regardless of ongoing concern about how geopolitical relations could also be filtering into area, the crew of the ISS confirmed their unity forward of the Soyuz’s scheduled return. On Tuesday, the crew carried out a change of command ceremony, with former commander Shkaplerov handing over the symbolic key to the area station to NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn forward of the Soyuz return. Through the ceremony, Shkaplerov hinted on the struggles occurring on Earth. “I [am] proud I used to be the commander of this wonderful crew,” he stated. “Individuals have issues on Earth. On orbit… we’re one crew.”