Two Russian cosmonauts and a US astronaut touched down safely in central Kazakhstan Monday, following a 173-day mission aboard the International Space Station.
NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough was accompanied by Russian space agency cosmonauts Sergei Ryzhikov and Andrei Borisenko in the earthbound Soyuz MS-02 craft.
‘Touchdown confirmed,’ said a commentator on NASA Television broadcasting the landing.
The landing took place in bright conditions at around 1120 GMT (1720 local time) close to the Kazakh steppe town of Dzhezkazgan.
Of the trio that blasted off towards the ISS together in October only Ryzhikov is completing a first mission.
Former Gulf War helicopter pilot Kimbrough spent close to 16 days on the US space shuttle Endeavour in 2008 while Borisenko was on his second ISS mission following a 164-day stint in 2011.
‘It’s really neat to be part of something this big, something bigger than ourselves … even bigger than a nation,’ Kimbrough said during a change-of-command ceremony on Sunday. ‘We get the ability up here to interact with things that actually benefit all of humanity. It’s really humbling.’
‘Goodnight Earth from @Space_Station, headed back your way tomorrow!’ Kimbrough wrote in his last tweet prior to the undocking from the ISS.
Three crew members remain aboard the station, a $100 billion research laboratory that flies about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth. In command is NASA’s Peggy Whitson, who on April 24 will break the 534-day record for the most time spent in space by a U. S. astronaut.
Whitson, a veteran of two previous missions on the station, is the first woman to hold the post of commander twice.
Two new crew members, Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and France’s Thomas Pesque, will join her on April 20.
The U. S. and Russian space agencies agreed last week to extend Whitson’s mission by three months to fill in as the new crew’s third member.
Russia is reducing its station cadre to two from three members until its new science laboratory launches to the space station next year, the head of Roscosmos said last week at the U. S. Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Whitson will return to Earth in September, having amassed a career U. S. record of 666 days in orbit. Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, who has 878 days in orbit, is the world’s most experienced space flier.
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