November 2, 2024

Soyuz Lands NASA Astronaut Loral O’Hara Back on Earth After 204 Days in Orbit

The Soyuz MS-24 crew ship carrying astronaut Loral OHara, cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya descends to Earth beneath its main parachute. Credit: NASA TVLoral OHara finished a 204-day space mission, landing in Kazakhstan and marking the start of Expedition 71 on the ISS.NASA astronaut Loral OHara ended her time in space with a parachute-assisted landing in the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft on the steppe of Kazakhstan, southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan, at 3:17 a.m. EDT (12:17 p.m. Kazakhstan time) on Saturday, April 6. OHara, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and spaceflight individual Marina Vasilevskaya of Belarus, started the journey back to Earth at 11:55 a.m. when the Soyuz undocked from the International Space Station.Expedition 70 Flight Engineer and NASA astronaut Loral OHara is photographed inside the NanoRacks Bishop airlock. Bishop can be uninstalled from its home on the Tranquility module for portable operations. It can also be used to stow freight and extract or install payloads. Credit: NASAOHara reached the International Space Station on September 15, 2023, spending 204 days in low Earth orbit.During her 204 days aboard the station, OHara experienced: Approximately 3,264 orbits of EarthApproximately 86,555,554 statute miles traveledEight spacecraft checking out the International Space Station, consisting of 2 Roscosmos Progress freight ships, one Northrop Grumman Cygnus freight spacecraft, one Roscosmos Soyuz, 2 crewed SpaceX Dragons, and 2 uncrewed SpaceX Dragons.NASA astronaut and Expedition 70 Flight Engineer Loral OHara uses individual protective equipment during scieintific upkeep tasks aboard the International Space Stations Destiny laboratory module. Credit: NASAExpedition 71 has formally started aboard the station with NASA astronauts Michael Barratt, Matthew Dominick, Tracy Dyson, and Jeannette Epps along with Roscosmos cosmonauts Nikolai Chub, Alexander Grebenkin, and Oleg Kononenko.