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Space trio lands on Sputnik anniversary

Soyuz landing
At the end of its parachute, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft fires its landing pyrotechnic devices as it touches down, bringing a U.S.-Russian crew back to Earth from the International Space Station. (NASA Photo / Bill Ingalls)

What better way to celebrate the 61st anniversary of the start of the Space Age than to see the successful return of U.S. and Russian spacefliers from orbit?

NASA astronauts Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold, along with Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev, touched down in the steppes of Kazakhstan at 5:44 p.m. local time (4:44 a.m. PT) today, 61 years after Russians sent their Sputnik satellite into space to kick off the U.S.-Soviet space race.

The landing came hours after the trio’s departure from the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Their tour of duty in space amounted to 197 days, highlighted by three spacewalks undertaken by Feustel and Arnold to replace and upgrade space station equipment.

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NASA and Russia knock down conspiracy theory

Fixing space station leak
Space station crew members work to patch up a small hole in the inner hull of a Soyuz spacecraft on Aug. 30. (NASA / Roscosmos via @NASASpaceflight / Twitter)

NASA and Russia’s space agency issued a joint statement today aimed at quashing viral claims that someone on the International Space Station’s crew sabotaged a Soyuz capsule by drilling a hole in orbit and creating an air leak.

The statement came two weeks after the crew discovered and patched the hole — and 10 days after Roscosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said he wouldn’t rule out the possibility of in-space sabotage.

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Russia space chief blames leak on drill hole

Soyuz leak hole
This picture of a tiny hole implicated in a Soyuz air leak was included in an initial version of a NASA video but later removed. The larger hole in the picture is part of the Soyuz spacecraft’s structure and did not play a role in the leak. (Roscosmos / NASA via NASASpaceFlight / Twitter)

The International Space Station’s crew has successfully stopped up last week’s tiny air leak in a Russian Soyuz capsule docked to the station, but worrisome reports are leaking out of Moscow.

Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Russian Space Agency, told reporters today that the leak was traced to what appears to be a drill hole piercing the Soyuz’ hull, and that in-space sabotage couldn’t be ruled out.

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Space station crew patches up tiny air leak

Soyuz craft
An air leak on the International Space Station has been localized to a Russian Soyuz spacecraft like this one. The orbital compartment is the upper chamber of the Soyuz shown here. (NASA Photo)

The International Space Station’s flight controllers detected a minute pressure leak overnight, but a temporary fix was made with epoxy and a gauze wipe. The six-person crew is in no danger, NASA said.

In a status update, NASA said the leak was isolated to a hole that’s about 2 millimeters (0.07 inches) in diameter in the orbital compartment of the Soyuz MS-09’s orbital module, which is attached to Russia’s Rassvet module. “This is a section of the Soyuz that does not return to Earth,” NASA explained.

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Russians toss satellites in marathon spacewalk

Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Sergey Prokopyev tossed four small research satellites into orbit and installed an animal-tracking sensor system known as Icarus on the International Space Station’s exterior today, during a spacewalk that ran more than an hour longer than planned.

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Russian ship sets record for space station cargo run

A robotic Russian Progress cargo craft today was sent on a “fast-track” trajectory that got it to the International Space Station in less time than it takes to drive from Seattle to Spokane. Liftoff of the Progress’ Soyuz rocket from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan came at 2:51 p.m. PT. The Progress and its payload, consisting of nearly three tons’ worth of food, fuel and supplies, arrived at the orbital outpost at 6:31 p.m. PT. The fastest-ever cargo run took less than four hours, rather than the usual two days, due to a carefully planned, time-saving, two-orbit trajectory that Russia wants to use for crewed as well as uncrewed flights.

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Spy targets cited in Russian consulate’s closure

Twenty-five years ago, the opening of Russia’s Seattle consulate was a symbol of the post-Cold War thaw, but now a chill in relations is causing its closure. It’s due to be shuttered on April 2 as part of the international response to this month’s poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in London.

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Space station crew returns to full strength

Two days after their launch, a fresh trio of spacefliers floated through the International Space Station’s hatch today to start a five-month tour of duty in orbit.

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Flap over Russian troll factory hits home

Katarina Aistova and Agata Burdonova
A photo that Russian linguist Agata Burdonova posted to her VKontakte account shows her at right, getting a hug from Katarina Aistova at left. Aistova has been linked to the Internet Research Agency, Russia’s “troll factory.” (Agata Burdonova via VK.com)

BELLEVUE, Wash. — Agata Burdonova may marvel on LiveJournal over the fact that she lives just a couple of miles from Bill Gates’ house, but I’m marveling more over the fact that I live just a couple of miles from her apartment.

The proximity is notable because Burdonova has been drawn into an international controversy over her connections to Russia’s Internet Research Agency, or IRA. That’s the infamous troll factory whose activities sparked 13 federal indictments this month, stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 elections.

According to a report from Russia’s TV Rain, Burdonova was an aide to the head of the IRA’s media and public forums department, Katarina Aistova, who figured in a New York Times story about the operation in 2015.

Burdonova’s voluminous social-media postings paint a much softer picture,

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Box gets tossed out in longest Russian spacewalk

Russian cosmonauts today conducted their nation’s longest-ever spacewalk to replace an electronics box for a high-gain antenna on the International Space Station’s Russian-made Zvezda module. The old box was thrown outward on a trajectory that’s not expected to imperil the station, but it took some doing to get the new box installed and working properly.

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