KOROLYOV, May 14 (RIA Novosti) – Three astronauts made a safe return to Earth from the International Space Station on Wednesday, landing in Kazakhstan in a Soyuz TMA-11M capsule, a spokesman for the Mission Control Center told RIA Novosti.
The Soyuz space capsule has returned Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata and US astronaut Rick Mastracchio after around six months on the ISS, the spokesman said.
“The Soyuz capsule with three crew members landed in the intended area, some 148 kilometers from the city of Zhezkazgan [Kazakhstan]. The hatches are open,” the spokesman said.
The three spacemen were in a “satisfactory condition” as they were extracted from the capsule by the search and rescue team, he said.
During the work on the ISS, Russian cosmonaut Tyurin took part in more than 600 sessions of 50 experiments, 49 of which had been launched in previous expeditions and two experiments (Biopolimer and Otklik) were new.
Tyurin is scheduled to land at the Chkalovsky Airport, 31 kilometers northeast of Moscow, at 2:30 pm Moscow time (1030 GMT).
Russians cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronaut Steve Swanson will remain aboard the station until May 28.
