U.S., Russian, Belarus ISS Colleagues Return to Earth

INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
A NASA astronaut, a Russian cosmonaut and Belarus's first ever space traveler on Saturday returned to Earth safely after a fortnight
aboard the International Space Station, Russia's Roscosmos agency reported."Today, at 10:17 am Moscow time (0717 GMT), the descent vehicle
of Sozuz MS-24 manned spacecraft landed near the Kazakh city of Jezkazgan," Roscosmos reported."The [vessel's ] deorbit and its descent to
Earth went off normally," the agency added.Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky and the first ever Belarusian cosmonaut, Marina Vassilevskaya,
"spent 14 days in orbit," while American astronaut Loral O'Hara completed a 204-day mission.For Vassilevskaya and O'Hara it was their first
ever stint on the ISS.In a statement, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko congratulated the crew for the safe return from their
mission.The spacecraft took off from the Baikonur space port in Kazakhstan on March 23 after a two-day delay following a hitch in pre-launch
corruption and failure.One recent setback was the loss of the robotic Luna-25 spacecraft in a crash on the Moon last August.Russian-Western
space cooperation has been hit by Russia's assault on Ukraine, which began in February 2022, and the international sanctions that
followed.The ISS is one rare abiding sphere of cooperation between Moscow and Washington.But Russia's space sector is hamstrung by a lack
increased competition from private companies such as billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX.