Despite all the political tensions between Russia and the United States, an American astronaut and two cosmonauts left the International Space Station (ISS) together on Wednesday morning and made their return to Earth.
Mark Vande Hei, Anton Schkaplerow and Pjotr Dubrov undocked from the ISS on board a Russian Soyuz capsule in the morning German time.
After a flight of around four hours, the Soyuz landed in the Kazakh steppe at 1:28 p.m.
The parachute deployed eleven minutes before touchdown.
The first images were transmitted three minutes later.
After the three astronauts had been rescued from the narrow capsule, they were brought to a previously erected tent and given a medical examination.
They were then flown by helicopter to the Kazakh city of Karaganda, where the crew parted ways.
Vande Hei flew on to Houston in the American state of Texas, and the two cosmonauts to Star City, not far from Moscow.
Speculations that Vande Hei could not fly back to Earth in a Soyuz had been denied by the American space agency Nasa and the Russian space agency Roscosmos.
Shkaplerov handed over command of the space station to American astronaut Thomas Marshburn before departure.
Even if people on Earth have problems, the ISS remains a symbol of cooperation, said Schkaplerov in a short speech during the farewell ceremony in front of the assembled crew.
Vande Hei and Dubrow had arrived together at Human Outpost on April 9, 2021.
Three American astronauts and three cosmonauts as well as the German astronaut Matthias Maurer remained on the ISS.
Maurer, who completed a spacewalk seven days ago, is expected to return to Earth in late April aboard an American Dragon capsule.