You’d be forgiven for thinking this dramatic image is a still from an upcoming sci-fi blockbuster, but it’s actually the work of photographer Andrew McConnell and part of his detailed series. Some worlds have two suns – and that’s just what this planet is.
McConnell began documenting the movements of Russia’s Soyuz rockets in 2015. Every three months, a spacecraft takes off from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying three cosmonauts and a cosmonaut on a six-hour journey to the International Space Station. At about the same time, three space travelers returned to Earth, landing in a remote steppe in northeastern Kazakhstan.
This remarkable photo taken in 2017 shows members of the ground crew in front of the just-landed Soyuz MS spacecraft, including U.S. astronauts Peggy Whitson and Jack Fisher, and Russian cosmonauts Aviator Fyodor Yurchikhin is still on board).
McConnell said it was difficult to take photos freely because “helicopters are often the first to arrive with all their engineers and support crews on board for these landings.” With this shot, he was able to “get into position before the helicopter came and created a sandstorm” and immediately knew it was “a special image unlike any other landing I’ve seen.” . It felt like an “other world,” he says.
Begins with a poem by Crash Akhmetova prayer – “I saw a sandstorm – wiped out a grassland village / I saw a rocket – hovering above me like a vision,” she writes – Some worlds have two suns will be released on October 4th.
Article modified on October 4, 2024
The man in the photo is a member of the ground staff. Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin is also on board.
topic:
