国际空间站三名宇航员返航后发现地球变了

Two NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut made a safe return from the International Space Station on Friday to find the planet transformed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Andrew Morgan, Jessica Meir and Oleg Skripochka touched down in central Kazakhstan at 5:16 GMT in the first returning mission since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in March.

Morgan had been on the ISS since July last year, while Meir and Skripochka arrived in September.

“TOUCHDOWN! Welcome home, Oleg Skripochka, Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir!” Russia’s Roscosmos space agency wrote on Twitter.

Unusually, NASA and Roscosmos did not show live footage of the trio parachuting down in their Soyuz landing capsule.

This was scrapped “due to technical limitations associated with the epidemiological situation,” Roscosmos said.

Subsequent footage from the landing site showed recovery crews wearing face masks and rubber gloves as they hauled the crew members out of the Soyuz MS-15 capsule, which was lying on its side.

“Please keep your distance,” one ground crew member could be heard telling another.

While the trio’s landing site southeast of the Kazakh town of Dzhezkazgan is the same as for previous crews, the pandemic has forced changes to mission-end protocol.

The crew will not be flying back home via Kazakhstan’s Karaganda airport as usual because it has been shut down, like so many other airports across the world.

Instead, Skripochka will fly from the Baikonur cosmodrome used to launch missions to the ISS while the NASA duo will take off in a plane from the steppe city of Kyzlorda after a drive of several hours.

In a media appearance aboard the ISS prior to her departure, Meir said it would be difficult to forgo embraces with family and friends as she gets to grips with a new culture of physical distancing on Earth.

“I think I will feel more isolated on Earth than here,” reflected Meir, who made history as one half of the first all-women spacewalk along with NASA colleague Christina Koch in October.

The International Space Station — a rare example of cooperation between Russia and the West — has been orbiting Earth at about 28,000 kilometers per hour since 1998.

Words to Learn 相关词汇

【跳伞】 tiàosǎn

parachute drop from an aircraft by parachute

【放弃】fàngqì

forgo not have or do something enjoyable

美国国家航空航天局两名宇航员和一名俄罗斯宇航员上周五从国际空间站安全返

回，却发现地球已经被新冠肺炎疫情改变。

安德鲁▪摩根、杰西卡▪迈尔和奥列

格▪斯克里波奇卡于格林尼治标准时间5时16分降落在哈萨克斯坦中部地区。这是自世界卫生组织3月宣布新冠肺炎全球大流行以来的首次返回任务。

摩根自去年7月以来一直在国际空间站工作，迈尔和斯克里波奇卡于去年9月抵达。

俄罗斯国家航天公司4月17日在推特上写道：“着陆！欢迎回家，奥列格▪斯克里波奇卡、安德鲁▪摩根和杰西卡▪迈尔！”

与以往不同的是，美国国家航空航天局和俄罗斯国家航天公司没有实况直播联盟号返回舱打开降落伞的着陆过程。

俄罗斯国家航天公司说：“由于与流行病学情况相关的技术限制”，这一环节被取消。

随后播放的着陆地点拍摄的画面显示，地面接应人员戴着口罩和橡胶手套，把他们从已降落的联盟号MS-15返回舱中拉出来。从视频中可以听到，一名地面工作人员对另一人说：“请保持距离。”

与之前的返回人员一样，三人的着陆地点位于哈萨克斯坦城镇杰兹卡兹甘东南部，但新冠肺炎疫情还是让任务结束后的流程不得不作出调整。

三名宇航员无法使用卡拉干达机场这个常规中转站返回各自的国家，因为该机场像全球许多其他机场一样被关闭。

斯克里波奇卡将从哈萨克斯坦的拜科努尔航天发射场飞回俄罗斯，这里也是国际空间站的任务发射基地。而美国国家航空航天局的两名宇航员将在驱车几小时后，从草原城市克孜勒奥尔达搭乘飞机。

迈尔在启程离开前在国际空间站接受媒体采访时说，返回地球后，她要努力适应保持身体距离的新变化，但不与亲友拥抱太难了。迈尔说：“我想我在地球上会比在这里感到更孤独。”她与美国国家航空航天局的同事克里斯蒂娜▪科赫在去年10月份进行了首次全女性太空行走，创造了历史。

国际空间站是俄罗斯与西方合作的罕见例子，自1998年以来一直以每小时约2.8万公里的速度绕地球运行。

(chinadaily.com.cn)