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[b]Soyuz TMA-21 makes silent but safe return to Earth[/b] Soyuz TMA-21 touched down safely on the southern region steppe of Kazakhstan, landing at 10:59:39 p.m. CDT on Thursday (9:59:39 a.m. local time Friday) after 164 days in space. The spacecraft followed the nominal landing profile, although Russian flight controllers in Mission Control were unable to raise the crew on radio for most of the descent. An aircraft dispatched to assist with the recovery operations was able to reestablish two-way communications once the Soyuz was back in the atmosphere. There was no immediate explanation offered for the unexpected radio blackout. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls Andrey Borisenko and Alexander Samokutyaev, both of the Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos, and NASA's Ron Garan landed aboard Soyuz TMA-21. The trio, which first arrived at the International Space Station on April 6, had been scheduled to land on Sept. 8, but was postponed by the Aug. 24 loss of the Progress M-12M resupply ship. Before leaving the station, Borisenko, who led Expedition 28, handed over command to NASA's Mike Fossum, who leads Expedition 29. He and flight engineers Satoshi Furukawa of Japan and Sergei Volkov of Russia will continue conducting research and maintenance on board the station through November. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls During their 162 days spent aboard the station, Borisenko, Garan and Samokutyaev celebrated the 50th anniversaries of the first manned and American spaceflights (by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and astronaut Alan Shepard respectively) and participated in the final mission of the 30-year space shuttle program. Their mission over, the three crewmates will be flown to Karaganda for the traditional Kazakh welcome home ceremony. Borisenko and Samokutyaev will then go to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, outside of Moscow, while Garan will be flown to Johnson Space Center in Houston to begin their rehabilitation.
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