US astronaut and Russian cosmonaut are returning home together

          Despite escalating tensions between the two countries over Ukraine, an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts will return to Earth together.

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying Nasa astronaut Mark Vande Hei and cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov is scheduled to detach from the International Space Station (ISS) at 0645 GMT and land four hours later in Kazakhstan.

The combined flight home comes amid growing concern about the future of US-Russian space cooperation.

Dmitry Rogozin, the director-general of Russia’s space agency, accused the US of attempting to “destroy” collaboration aboard the ISS on February 25 – the day after Russia invaded Ukraine.

“Who is going to preserve the ISS from an uncontrolled descent from orbit and subsequently falling onto the land of the United States or Europe if you restrict cooperation with us?”, he said.

Nasa, on the other hand, stated that it will continue to collaborate with all of its foreign partners, including Russia, and that export sanctions would not prevent it from doing so.