04/17/2020

Soyuz MS-15 Spacecraft Safely Returns back to Earth Expedition 62 Space Crew

Three Optolink's TRS-500 fiber-optic gyroscopes, installed into control system of Descent Module of the latest Soyuz modification, Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft, successfully executed their mission during landing. The Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft landed in Kazakhstan on April 16, 2020, at 1:16 a.m. EDT (05:16 GMT; 11:16 a.m. Kazakhstan time), with Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, commander of Expedition 62 and Soyuz MS-15, and NASA Flight Engineers Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan. The landing module safely landed on-target about 150 kilometers south-east from the town of Dzhezkazgan in the Kazakhstan. Andrew Morgan is back on Earth after 272 days in orbit. He traveled more than 115 million miles during his mission. Oleg Skripochka and Jessica Meir spent 205 days in orbit and traveled nearly 87 million miles. Although, due to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic, the plan for the trio’s post-landing activities altered. Instead, the crew members were immediately airlifted by helicopter to Baikonur, where they boarded aircraft that took them home, Skripockha boarded a Roscosmos plane and be flown to Star City, Russia, while Meir and Morgan were returned to Houston, Texas via a NASA aircraft.