After about six months in space and several delayed departures, two American, one Russian and one Japanese astronaut left the International Space Station (MSS) in Elon Musk's SpaceX private spaceflight capsule, NASA announced Saturday.
The capsule with four space passengers has separated from the MSS, the US space agency announced, and should arrive on Earth on Sunday evening, reports N1.
The departure of the MSS with members of "Crew-5", consisting of NASA astronaut Nicole Aunapu Mann, her colleague Josh Kasada and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina, has been delayed several times due to weather conditions. They were originally supposed to leave a few days ago.
The capsule with "Crew-5" was launched in October from Cape Canaveral. It was the first joint launch of a NASA astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut from American soil since the start of Russia's war against Ukraine more than a year ago.
Russian cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitry Petelin, as well as NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and members of "Crew-6", who arrived there only a few days ago, remain on the MSS.
That crew consists of the Americans Steven Bowen and Warren Hoburg, the Russian Andrei Fedjaev and the Emirati Sultan al-Niyadi.
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