An astronaut from the US and two cosmonauts from Russia are returning to Earth together from the International Space Station (ISS) despite geopolitical tensions between the two countries over Ukraine.
A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying Nasa astronaut Mark Vande Hei and cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov is expected to undock from the International Space Station (ISS) at 0645 GMT and land in Kazakhstan four hours later, according to a BBC report.
The joint trip home comes amid rising uncertainty about the fate of US-Russian cooperation in space.
The United States has led western countries in imposing new economic sanctions on Russia and is also supplying military equipment and ammunition to Ukraine. Russia and its federal space agency, Roscosmos, have denounced the sanctions and withdrawn from several longstanding partnerships in response.
On 25 February – the day after Russia invaded Ukraine – Dmitry Rogozin, the director-general of Russia's space agency, accused the US of trying to "destroy" cooperation at the ISS.
Nasa, however, said that it would continue to work with all its international partners – including Russia – and that export sanctions continue to allow it to work with Russia.
