Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, NASA astronaut Mike Fossum and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Satoshi Furukawa returned to Earth on board the Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft on Monday after 167 days off the planet, all but two days aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
Touching down on its side, the Soyuz capsule landed at 8:26 p.m. CST (8:26 a.m. Tuesday local time; 32 minutes before sunrise) on the frigid, snow-covered central steppe of Kazakhstan, near the town of Arkalyk.
Recovery forces reported the crew to be in good shape.
Fossum, Furukawa and Volkov arrived at the space station on June 9 aboard the same spacecraft, TMA-02M, as they landed, joining the Expedition 28 crew as flight engineers. ISS Expedition 29 began and Fossum took command when Expedition 28 crew members Andrey Borisenko, Ron Garan and Alexander Samokutyaev left the station in September.
Their mission over, the three TMA-02M crewmates will be flown to Karaganda for a traditional Kazakh welcome home ceremony. Volkov will then go to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, outside of Moscow, while Fossum and Furukawa will be flown to the Johnson Space Center in Houston to begin their rehabilitation.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls
[i][b]Above[/b]: Expedition 29 crewmates Mike Fossum, left, Sergei Volkov, center, and Satoshi Furukawa, outside their Soyuz TMA-02M capsule just minutes after they landed in a remote area outside the town of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan.[/i]