Soyuz TMA-19 landed safely in Kazakhstan at 10:46 p.m. CST on Thursday (10:46 a.m. Friday Kazakhstan time), returning Expedition 25 crew members Douglas Wheelock, Shannon Walker and Fyodor Yurchikhin to Earth after 163 days in space.
Following its undocking from the International Space Station (ISS) at 7:23 p.m. and a four minute, 21 second deorbit burn at 9:55, Soyuz TMA-19 reentered Earth's atmosphere at 10:23. Recovery parachutes began opening nine minutes later, lowering the spacecraft to a touch down northeast of the Kazakh town of Arkalyk.
Working in frigid temperatures, recovery teams were on hand to help the crew exit the Soyuz vehicle and re-adjust to gravity.
Yurchikhin will return to the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, outside of Moscow. Wheelock and Walker will fly directly home to Houston, Texas.
The trio launched on Soyuz TMA-19 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on June 15. As members of the Expedition 24 and 25 crews, they spent 163 days in space, 161 of them aboard the station, and celebrated the 10th anniversary of continuous human life, work and research by international crews aboard the station on Nov. 2.
During their mission, the crew members worked on more than 120 experiments in human research; biology and biotechnology; physical and materials sciences; technology development; and Earth and space sciences.
The astronauts also responded to an emergency shutdown of half of the station's external cooling system and supported three unplanned spacewalks by Wheelock and Expedition 24 flight engineer Tracy Caldwell Dyson to replace the faulty pump module that caused the shutdown. Their efforts restored the station's critical cooling system to full function.
The landing brings to a close Yurchikhin's third space flight and his second stay on the ISS. He was also an Expedition 15 flight engineer and STS-112 mission specialist. The Roscosmos cosmonaut has now logged more than a year in space with a total of 371 days.
Expedition 25 commander Doug Wheelock.
NASA astronaut Wheelock, who served as Expedition 25 commander, completed his second space flight with a career total of 178 days in space. In 2007, he was a mission specialist for the 15-day STS-120 flight of space shuttle Discovery.
This was the first mission for Walker, who is the first NASA astronaut native to Houston, Texas, home to the Johnson Space Center.
Still on the station are Expedition 26 commander Scott Kelly and flight engineers Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka. ISS Expedition 26 began with the departure of Soyuz TMA-19.
NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman, Roscosmos cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, and Paolo Nespoli with the European Space Agency are scheduled to launch on Soyuz TMA-20 to the ISS on Dec. 15. They will dock and join its crew on Dec. 17.