Tracy Dyson Completes Six-Month Research Expedition

NASA astronaut Tracy C. Dyson, along with Roscosmos crewmates Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub, safely returned to Earth on September 23. This follows their successful completion of a six-month International Space Station (ISS) research mission.

The trio departed the ISS on board a Soyuz MS-25 spacecraft at 4:36 am EDT and made a parachute-assisted landing southeast of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 7:59 am.

Dyson, along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya, launched to the ISS on March 23.  Novitskiy and Vasilevskaya spent 12 days on the station before returning to Earth with NASA astronaut Loral O’Hara.

During the mission, Dyson conducted a variety of scientific experiments. One highlight was her use of a 3D bioprinter to produce cardiac tissue samples, a part of her work toward developing replacement organs and transplant tissues. She also participated in the crystallization of model proteins to assess hardware for pharmaceutical production and tested a program utilizing student-designed software to control the station's free-flying robots.

Dyson's 184-day completed 2,944 orbits around the Earth, covering 78 million miles, as part of the Expedition 70/71 crew. Her 31-minute spacewalk brings her extravehicular activity (EVA) total to 23 hours and 20 minutes across four occasions.

Kononenko and Chub launched with O’Hara to the ISS on a Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft in September 2023. Kononenko has spent 374 days in space over his five flights, accumulating a total of 1,111 days in orbit. This mission marked Chub's first journey into space.

The crew will be undergoing a series of medical checks before being transported by chopper to a recovery staging city in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Dyson will subsequently hop on a NASA aircraft for a return flight to the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

The spacecraft’s undocking, trip, and landing were streamed live through NASA’s social media and are still up for viewing.

FMI: www.nasa.gov