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United States astronaut Mark Vande Hei has made it through nearly a year in space. Now, he faces an unusual situation: At the end of the month, he is going to ride a Russian spacecraft back to Earth as tensions deepen between the countries.

美国宇航员马克·范德海在太空中已经停留了将近一年的时间。现在他面临着一种非常局面：随着俄美两国紧张局势进一步加深，他将在月底乘坐俄罗斯飞船返回地球。

Vande Hei — who recently broke the U.S. single spaceflight record of 340 days — is due to leave the International Space Station (ISS) with two Russians in a Soyuz capsule. They will land in Kazakhstan on March 30.

范德海最近打破了美国单次太空飞行340天的记录，他将与两名俄罗斯人乘坐联盟号飞船离开国际空间站。他们将于3月30日降落在哈萨克斯坦。

The astronaut will have spent 355 days in space by then, setting a new U.S. record. The world record of 438 continuous days in space belongs to Russia.

届时，这位宇航员将在太空中停留355天，创下新的美国记录。在太空中连续停留438天的世界记录属于俄罗斯。

NASA insists Vande Hei's return plans at the end of the month remain unchanged, even as Russia's invasion of Ukraine has resulted in canceled launches, broken contracts and a war of words with the Russian Space Agency's leader, Dmitry Rogozin.

美国宇航局坚称范德海在月底返回的计划保持不变，即使俄罗斯入侵乌克兰导致发射取消、合同破裂以及跟俄罗斯航天局负责人德米特里·罗戈津打口水战。

Retired¹ NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is among those arguing with Rogozin, a longtime ally of Vladimir Putin. Angered by what is going on in Ukraine, Kelly has returned his Russian medal for space exploration to the Russian Embassy in Washington.

美国宇航局退役宇航员斯科特·凯利是普京的长期盟友，他也跟罗戈津发生了争吵。凯利对乌克兰发生的事情感到愤怒，将俄罗斯颁发给他的太空探索奖章还给了俄罗斯驻华盛顿大使馆。

Despite the conflict on Earth, Kelly believes the two sides "can hold it together" up in space.

尽管在地球上发生了冲突，凯利相信双方可以在太空保持一致。

He told the Associated Press, "We need an example set that two countries that historically have not been on the most friendly of terms, can still work somewhere peacefully. And that somewhere is the International Space Station. That's why we need to fight to keep it."

他对美联社表示：“我们需要一个榜样，让两个在历史上不太友好的国家仍然可以在某个地方和平合作。而那个地方就是国际空间站。这就是为什么我们需要保持保住它。”

NASA wants to keep the space station running until 2030, as do the European, Japanese and Canadian space agencies, while the Russians have not committed beyond the original end date of 2024.

美国宇航局希望国际空间站一直运行到2030年，欧洲、日本和加拿大的航天机构也希望如此，而俄罗斯人并没有承诺超过原定的2024年的结束日期。

The U.S. and Russia are the main operators of the ISS, which has been permanently² occupied for 21 years. Until SpaceX started launching astronauts in 2020, Americans regularly got rides on Russian Soyuz capsules for tens of millions of dollars per seat.

美国和俄罗斯是国际空间站的主要运营商，该空间站已经长期使用了21年。在美国太空探索技术公司于2020年开始发送宇航员之前，美国人经常以每人数千万美元的价格乘坐俄罗斯联盟号飞船。

The U.S. and Russian space agencies are still working on a long-term plan in which a Russian would launch on a SpaceX capsule beginning this fall and an American would fly up on the Soyuz. That would permit a U.S. and Russian station presence at all times.

美国和俄罗斯航天机构仍在制定一项长期计划，从今年秋天开始，俄罗斯人将乘坐美国太空探索技术公司的飞船升空，而美国人将乘坐联盟号飞船升空。这将允许俄美空间站一直存在。

Vande Hei, 55, a retired Army colonel, moved into the space station last April, launching on a Soyuz from Kazakhstan with Pyotr Dubrov and another Russian. He and Dubrov stayed twice as long as usual to help with a Russian film crew that visited in October.

55岁的范德海是一名退役陆军上校，他于去年4月份与彼得·杜布罗夫以及另一名俄罗斯人一起，从哈萨克斯坦搭乘联盟号飞船发射升空并进入国际空间站。他和杜布罗夫的停留时间是平时的两倍，以帮助10月份访问国际空间站的一个电影摄制组。

As the situation 420 kilometers below became worse last month, Vande Hei said he was avoiding discussions about Ukraine with Dubrov and Anton Shkaplerov, their Russian commander. Three more Russians will launch from Kazakhstan on Friday to replace them.

由于空间站下方420公里的地球上的状况变得更糟，范德海说他正避免与杜布罗夫以及他们的俄罗斯指挥官安东·什卡普列罗夫讨论乌克兰问题。另外3名俄罗斯宇航员将于周五从哈萨克斯坦发射升空来接替他们。

"We haven't talked about that too much. I'm not sure we really want to go there," Vande Hei told a TV reporter in mid-February.

范德海在2月中旬对电视记者表示：“我们没怎么谈那些。我不认为我们真的想谈那些。”

Space station operations continue as always — in orbit and on Earth, according to NASA.

据美国宇航局称，国际空间站一如既往地在地球上空轨道上运行。

"It would be a sad day for international operations if we can't continue to peacefully operate in space," said NASA's human spaceflight chief Kathy Lueders, who noted³ it would be "very difficult" to do space research alone.

美国宇航局载人航天负责人凯西·卢德斯指出，单独进行太空研究会非常困难，他表示：“如果我们不能继续在太空中和平运营，那对国际化运营来说将是悲哀的一天。”