One NASA astronaut and two Roscosmos cosmonauts are set to leave the International Space Station next week and return to Earth.
NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub and Oleg Kononenko, will depart the ISS aboard the Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft on September 23 (U.S. time). They are expected to make a parachute-assisted landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan later that same day.
During this transition, Kononenko will transfer station command to NASA astronaut Suni Williams, marking the start of Expedition 72.
NASA will provide live coverage of the return and related activities on its website and through the NASA app.
Dyson’s mission lasted 184 days, during which she completed 2,944 orbits of the Earth, traveling a total of 78 million miles. The Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft launched on March 23, 2024, arriving at the ISS two days later with Dyson, cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya from Belarus onboard. Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya spent 12 days on the station before returning to Earth with NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara on April 6.
Kononenko and Chub, who launched with O’Hara on the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft last September, will complete their mission after 374 days in space, having traveled 158.6 million miles and completed 5,984 orbits.
This marks Dyson’s fourth spaceflight, where she served as a flight engineer for Expeditions 70 and 71. Kononenko concludes his fifth mission, accumulating a record 1,111 days in orbit, while Chub completes his inaugural spaceflight.
Once they land, the three crew members will be flown by helicopter to the recovery staging city of Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Dyson will board a NASA plane for her journey back to Houston, while Kononenko and Chub will proceed to a training base in Star City, Russia.
