Capsule carrying record-breaking astronauts returning to Earth

A Russian space capsule has undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) to take three astronauts back to Earth – two of them having completed a record-long stay on the orbiting laboratory.

The capsule carrying Russians Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub and American Tracy Dyson is expected to land in the vast Kazakhstan steppe about three and a half hours after the undocking.

Kononenko and Chub blasted off for the space station on September 15 2023, and on Friday they set the record for the longest continuous mission on the ISS. They have spent more than 370 days in space.

Dyson, in her third mission into outer space, spent six months on board.

Eight astronauts remain on the space station, including the Americans Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have remained long past their scheduled return to Earth.

They arrived in June as the first crew of Boeing’s new Starliner capsule. But their trip was marred by thruster troubles and helium leaks, and the US space agency Nasa decided it was too risky to return them on Starliner.

The two astronauts will ride home with SpaceX next year.