US-Russian space crew lands safely in Kazakhstan

MOSCOW (AP) — A U.S.-Russian crew landed safely Friday in the steppes of Kazakhstan following a stint on the International Space Station and was greeted with extra precautions due to the coronavirus.

NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan. and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka touched down as scheduled at 11:16 a.m. (0516 GMT) Friday. Their Soyuz capsule landed under a striped orange-and-white parachute about 150 kilometers (93 miles) southeast of Dzhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan.

On Friday, Russia's space corporation Roscosmos said it had 42 coronavirus cases and reported the first deaths. It said two workers who died had tested positive for the virus and another employee, who died of pneumonia, was suspected of having the infection.

Russian officials said they took stringent measures to protect the crew members amid the pandemic. The recovery team and medical personnel assigned to help the three out of the capsule and to perform post-flight checks were under close medical observation for nearly a month before the landing and were tested for the coronavirus.

Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin said the three astronauts were feeling well.

Morgan wrapped up a 272-day mission on his first flight into space. He conducted seven space walks, four of which were to improve and extend the life of the station’s Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which looks for evidence of dark matter in the universe.

Meir and Skripochka spent 205 days in space, with Meir carrying out the first three all-women spacewalks with crewmate Christina Koch, who returned from space in February.

The crew members smiled as they talked to medical experts wearing masks. Following a quick checkup, they were flown by helicopter to Baikonur. From there, Skripochka will be taken to Moscow, while Morgan and Meir will be driven from Baikonur to...