Soyuz MS-28 touched down by parachute southeast of Dzhezkazgan on Sunday, returning NASA astronaut Chris Williams and cosmonauts Sergei Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev after eight months aboard the ISS.
The 241-day mission was the first spaceflight for Williams and Mikaev and the second for Kud-Sverchkov, marking the end of a long-duration stay on the orbiting outpost.
Karaganda is the crew’s next stop: Williams will head on to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, while the two Russian crewmates will return to Star City near Moscow.
July 14 brought their replacements to the station — NASA’s Anil Menon and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina — extending the U.S.-Russian crew-swap cooperation despite strains since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.