A US record 355 days at the International Space Station was broken on Wednesday when a Russian and two other people returned to Earth.
The Russian Space Agency's Pyotr Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov both spent a year in space, along with Mark Vande Hei.
Vande Hei's return followed usual procedures despite the tensions between the US and Russia. A small team of doctors and other staff from Nasa were on hand for the touchdown and were going to return to Houston with the astronauts.
Vande Hei said he was avoiding the subject with his two Russian crewmates. Despite getting along, I am not sure we want to go there.
It was the first time Vande Hei and Dubrov had felt gravity since their launch. Shkaplerov was at the space lab in October escorting a Russian film crew. Vande Hei and Dubrov doubled the length of their stay to accommodate that visit.
Shkaplerov embraced his fellow astronauts as "my space brothers and space sister" before he left the space station.
People have a problem on Earth. Shkaplerov said in a live broadcast that we are one crew. The space station is a symbol of friendship and cooperation.
The war tensions bubbled over in other areas of space with the suspension of European satellite launches on Russian rockets and the Europe-Russia Mars rover stuck on Earth for another two years.
The director-general of Russia's space agency accused the US of trying to destroy cooperation at the International Space Station.
If you block cooperation with us, who is going to save the International Space Station from falling into the United States or Europe?
The comments were played down by Nasa. The agency said that it would work with all of its international partners, including Russia, and that export sanctions allow it to work with Russia.
Nelson told the Associated Press that he spouts off every now and then. He worked with us at the end of the day.
The other people in the Russian space program are professional. They keep up with us, American astronauts and American mission control.
The Russian invasion resulted in canceled launches and broken contracts. While threatening to pull out of the space station and drop it on the US, Europe or elsewhere, he had the flags of other countries covered on a Soyuz rocket. The launch was called off after the customer, London-based OneWeb, refused the demand that the satellites not be used for military purposes.
The European Space Agency said that it was suspending its mission because of the war in Ukraine.
Nelson said that they can have a cooperation with their Russian friends. The civilian space program has cooperation going on.
Vande Hei's landing in the northeast of Russia's space launch facility at the Baikonur Cosmodrome surpasses the previous record of Nasa.
Russia's top five were moved by Dubrov. The 437-day, 17-hour marathon by a cosmonaut-physician aboard the 1990s Mir space station is the world record.
Scott Kelly, Nasa's previous space endurance champ, said that broken records mean we're making progress.
Vande Hei underwent medical testing during his stay to further the quest to get astronauts back to the moon and on to Mars. He said daily meditation helped him cope twice as long as his first station stint.
Vande Hei said in a recent series of videos that he was looking forward to being outside no matter what the weather was like. He is looking forward to making a cup of coffee for himself and wife Julie, and eating some chips and guacamole.
Three Russians who arrived two weeks ago, and three Americans and one German who arrived in November, remain on board. Their replacements are due in three weeks.
Three rich businessmen and their ex-astronaut escort will be flown to the station by SpaceX next week.
Nine years after the shuttle program ended, Musk's company began transporting astronauts to the station. For most of the decade, Russia offered the only taxi service, with Nasa shelling out tens of millions of dollars per seat. Vande Hei's ride was part of a barter exchange.
The US and Russian space agencies are still working on a system in which a Russian would launch on a SpaceX capsule and an American would fly on the Soyuz, helping ensure a US and Russian station presence at all times.
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