After 355 days in space, Mark Vande Hei returned to Earth on Wednesday with two Russian counterparts.
Mr. Vande Hei, his Russian crewmates, and Pyotr Dubrov flew home in a Russian spaceship. Despite Russia's deadly invasion of Ukraine and the tensions it has caused between Moscow and the West, the two space agencies have continued to collaborate.
It happened at 5:28 p.m. local time. The time is Eastern. There were three helicopters that landed nearby.
The future of the International Space Station can no longer be taken for granted because of the cooperation between Russia and the United States.
The space station was supposed to be a marvel of peaceful post-Cold War amity between Moscow and Washington, drawing Russia into the community of international collaboration and preventing Russian rocket engineers from selling expertise to countries like North Korea seeking to build better missiles.
Mr. Vande Hei talked about the legacy of cooperation in space in an interview with NASA Television last week.
Mr. Vande Hei said that this is a challenging time for international relations.
In the past month, Russia has faced sanctions and condemnation from the Western nations. President Biden criticized Putin for the invasion.
For the past month, NASA has made minimal statements saying that operations on the space station are unaffected. The military conflict could affect its ability to work with the state corporation that runs Russia's space activities.
The capsule was pulled over on its side by the winds when it landed upright. Recovery teams helped the astronauts out of the plane.
Mr. Vande Hei was welcomed by NASA flight doctors, public affairs officials and representatives from the astronauts office and the space station management. Gary Jordan, a NASA spokesman, said that there should be no deviation from the usual process for receiving American astronauts.
The astronauts drank tea during their initial medical tests. Mr. Vande Hei took off a pair of sunglasses after he said it was a beautiful day. Mr. Vande Hei spoke with someone on a satellite phone as he and the two Russian crew were carried into an inflatable tent for more medical checks.
After their stay in the tents, the astronauts will take a helicopter flight to an airport, where they will board a plane back to the US. Mr. Vande Hei will be back in Houston.
NASA and the Russian space program worked together on Wednesday to bring their crew members back from space, but their cooperation was preceded in recent weeks by tense statements by the Russian space program leader. The Russians might leave Mr. Vande Hei behind.
NASA officials insisted that nothing has changed after Mr. Rogozin said something.
Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator, said during his State of NASA speech on Monday that the working relationship between NASA and its international partners continues.
Scott Kelly, a retired astronaut who held the record for consecutive days in space by an American until Mr. Vande Hei passed it recently, feuded publicly this month with Mr. Rogozin. He stopped at NASA's request.
Russian and European cooperation collapsed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The European Space Agency was going to send a rover to Mars. OneWeb, a British satellite internet company, canceled a series of launches that used Russia's Soyuz rockets. Russia said it would stop the science experiments with Germany conducted on the Russian part of the space station. A member of the crew is a German.
The module Zarya was launched in 1998 to begin the construction of the International Space Station. It is part of the NASA-led half of the space station that reflects American foreign policy at the time and was built by Russia. The United States and Russia have been in charge of the space station since 2000, with assistance from European, Japanese and other international partners.
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