Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin sends congratulations from the ISS
- 12th Jun 2019
- Author: Mike
On October 10th Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin and US astronaut Nick Hague were launched to the ISS from Kazakhstan on Soyuz MS-10. Their mission ended the same day with an emergency ballistic landing after an anomaly with the booster.
Search and rescue teams were deployed to the landing site, and Alexei and Nick were recovered from the capsule in good condition.
On 11th October we were celebrating the National Space Academy's 10 year anniversary. ESA Human Spaceflight Director Dr David Parker led a toast to the two explorers in his keynote speech (see image below).
This summer, both Nick and Alexei are now safely on-board the ISS having launched again in March. On 26th May 2019, Alexei took time out from preparing his spacesuit for an upcoming EVA ("spacewalk") to send his congratulations to the National Space Academy on celebrating 10 years. He sent us this picture.
The Orlan spacesuit in the image is the one Alexei Ovchinin used the next day on a special spacewalk to celebrate the birthday of Alexei Leonov (the first human to walk in space). If you look carefully you can see Alexei Ovchinin's reflection in the gold visor of the suit.