The ISS crew lands in Kazakhstan after more than 200 days.

A US-Russian space crew safely landed on Friday in the steppes of Kazakhstan, greeted with additional precautions amid the coronavirus pandemic.

After a stint on the International Space Station, NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Andrew Morgan and Russian Oleg Skripochka landed on Friday at 11:16 a.m. (0516 GMT). Its Soyuz landing pod landed under an orange and white striped parachute about 150 kilometers (93 miles) southeast of Dzhezkazgan, in central Kazakhstan.

Russian authorities said they took strict measures to protect the crew amid the pandemic. Recovery team and medical personnel assigned to help the crew exit the capsule and for post-flight controls had been under close medical observation for nearly a month, including testing for the coronavirus.

The space crew smiled as they spoke to medical experts in masks. After a quick checkup, the crew will be flown by helicopter to Baikonur, from where Skripochka will be taken to Moscow, said Vyacheslav Rogozhnikov, a Russian medical officer who oversaw the return of the crew.

Morgan and Meir will have to be driven from Baikonur to Kyzyl-Orda, 300 kilometers (190 miles) away, to board a flight to the US. USA, a strenuous journey that Kazakhstan’s quarantine measures necessitated.

On Thursday, the Russian government headquarters of the coronavirus reported the first contagion in Star City, which serves as the main hub for pre-flight training for international, American and Russian crew members of the International Space Station. Star City also has residential rooms for cosmonauts and support staff.

Roscosmos director Dmitry Rogozin said Wednesday that the Russian space corporation had 30 cases of coronavirus.

The crew returned to Earth exactly 50 years after Apollo 13 astronauts splashed into the Pacific after an oxygen tank explosion aborted the landing mission.

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

Meir and Skripochka spent 205 days in space, and Meir conducted the first three spacewalks for women with her teammate Christina Koch, who returned from space in February.

Speaking from the outpost in orbit before returning to Earth, the crew said that returning to a world drastically changed by the pandemic will be a challenge. Morgan said the crew has tried to stay on top of the news about the coronavirus, but added that it is difficult to understand what is really happening.

“It is quite surreal for us to see how this whole situation unfolds on the planet below,” Meir said. “We can tell you that Earth still looks as impressive as ever from here, making it hard to believe all the changes that have taken place since we have both been here.”

A new crew consisting of NASA’s Chris Cassidy and Russians Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner arrived at the station on April 9. Before takeoff they said they had been under very strict quarantine for a month before the flight and were feeling fine.

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