After 86 Million Miles In Space, NASA Astronauts Forced To Take 186 Mile COVID-19-Detour On Return To Earth

You know the coronavirus restrictions in place globally are serious when its easier to get back to Earth from the International Space Station than it is to get home once you’ve touched back down on the blue planet. 

NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir are being forced to take a major detour on their way home from the Kazakh steppe, where they landed early Friday morning. After 205 days in space, more than 3200 orbits around the Earth and a trip of 86.9 million miles, the astronauts still have to take a 186 mile detour before boarding a flight back to the U.S.

The astronaut’s Soyuz MS-15 capsule touched down southeast of the Kazakh town of Dzhezkazgan at 1117 local time, according to Reuters, as was planned.

But all of Kazakhstan’s provinces are in lockdown as a result of coronavirus quarantines, so search and rescue teams were unable to set up a base in Dzhezkazgan for the astronauts.

According to Vyacheslav Rogozhnikov, the deputy head of Russia’s Federal Medical Biological Agency, the Baikonur cosmodrome spaceport, which is rented by Russia despite being in Kazakhstan, was instead being used as a base for the crew. 

The U.S. astronauts will then have to endure a 186 mile drive to Kzylorda, where they will then board a NASA aircraft that will finally wind up taking them home. 

You can watch the livestream of the landing, as it happened early Friday morning, here: