An astronaut from the US and two cosmonauts from Russia will return to earth together despite rising 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.
The joint trip home comes amid rising uncertainty about the fate of US-Russian cooperation in space.
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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.
“If you block cooperation with us, then who is going to save the ISS from an uncontrolled descent from orbit and then falling onto the territory of the United States or Europe?” he said.
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.
