An International Space Station team has safely landed in Kazakhstan after more than two hundred days in space.
The Soyuz capsule with NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir and Oleg Skripochka from Russian area firm Roscosmos landed on Friday near the city of Dzhezkazgan.
The capsule landed on an orange and white striped parachute about 150 km southeast of Dzhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan.
Russian authorities said they had taken strict measures for the team amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The recovery team and the medical corps of the assigned workers to help the team exit the capsule and perform post-flight checks had been under close medical supervision for nearly a month, adding coronavirus tests.
The area team smiled as they spoke to medical experts dressed in masks. After a quick review, the team will be transported by helicopter to Baikonur, from where Mr. Skripochka will be taken to Moscow, said Vyacheslav Rogozhnikov, a Russian medical official who oversaw the team’s return.
Mr. Morgan and Ms. Meir must be taken from Baikonur to Kyzyl-Orda, three hundred miles away, to board a flight to the United States, an arduous adventure through Kazakhstan’s quarantine measures.
On Thursday, the Russian government coronavirus headquarters reported the first contagion at Star City, which serves as the main hub for pre-flight training of US, Russian and other international crew members of the International Space Station.
Star City also has residential spaces for cosmonauts and staff.
On Friday, Roscosmos said it had 42 coronavirus cases and reported the first deaths. It said two workers who died had tested positive for the virus and another employee, who died of pneumonia, was suspected of having the infection.
The crew returned to Earth exactly 50 years after the Apollo 13 astronauts splashed down in the Pacific after an oxygen tank explosion aborted the moon landing mission.
Mr Morgan wrapped up a 272-day mission on his first flight into space. He conducted seven space walks, four of which were to improve and extend the life of the station’s Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which looks for evidence of dark matter in the universe.
Ms Meir and Mr Skripochka spent 205 days in space, with Ms Meir carrying out the first three all-women spacewalks with her crewmate Christina Koch, who returned from space in February.
Speaking from the outpost in orbit before the return, the team said returning to a radically altered Earth through the pandemic will be difficult.
Morgan said the team had tried to keep up with the coronavirus news, but added that it was hard to perceive what was happening.
? ? ? ? ? ? – AstroDrewMorgan, @Astro_Jessica and Oleg Skripochka of Roscosmos are safe on Earth after their project aboard @Space_Station, after their Soyuz spacecraft landed at 1:16 a.m. ET: https: // t. co/ 2ClaTfrc5L pic.twitter.com/lhOZj6cts8
— NASA (@NASA) April 17, 2020
“It is quite surreal for us to see this whole situation unfolding on the planet below,” said Ms Meir.
“We can tell you that the Earth is still as beautiful as the previous one from here, so it’s hard to make all the adjustments they’ve taken position since we’ve been here.”
A new crew comprising Nasa’s Chris Cassidy and Russians Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner arrived at the station on April 9.
They said before blast-off that they had been under a very strict quarantine for a month before the flight and were feeling good.
For as little as £5.99 a month you can access all of our content, including Premium articles.