NASA Astronaut Loral O’Hara and team return safely to Earth following 6-month mission on space station

After a successful six-month research mission aboard the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and Belarus spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya have safely landed back on Earth.

Their return journey began when they left the space station aboard the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft at 11:54 p.m. EDT on April 5. After a steady descent, they made a parachute-assisted landing on April 6 at 3:17 a.m. (12:17 p.m. Kazakhstan time), touching down southeast of the remote Kazakh city of Dzhezkazgan.

Successful completion of the mission

O’Hara started his space project on September 15, 2023 together with Roskosmos cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub. The latter two will continue their duties at the station for a year. Meanwhile, Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya and NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson departed on Soyuz MS-25 on March 23, with Dyson scheduled to remain aboard until the fall.

During the first space flight, O’Hara spent a total of 204 days in space. Novitskiy, an experienced astronaut with four missions, has accumulated 545 days in space. On her maiden voyage, Vasilevskaja logged into space for 14 days.

Participation in space exploration

O’Hara’s mission, which supports NASA’s Artemis campaign, helped prepare for lunar exploration and lay the groundwork for future manned flights to Mars. His efforts included approximately 3,264 orbits of the Earth and a distance of more than 86.5 million miles. He conducted a variety of scientific experiments on the space station, focusing on areas such as heart health, cancer treatments, and space manufacturing techniques.

After thorough post-landing medical checks, the crew will proceed to the recovery site city of Karaganda, Kazakhstan. From there, O’Hara boards a NASA plane bound for the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

With the departure of the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft carrying O’Hara, Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya, Expedition 71 officially began on the station. Expedition 71 includes NASA astronauts Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Tracy C. Dyson and Jeannette Epps and Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin and Oleg Kononenko, who will continue their mission until the fall.