Soyuz MS-09 With 3 Crew Members Lands Successfully in Kazakhstan - Reports

KOROLYOV (Sputnik) - Russian Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft with the International Space Station (ISS) crew members on board landed successfully in Kazakhstan on 20 December, a Sputnik correspondent reported from the Mission Control Center.

"Landing has taken place", the text on a big screen located in the main hall of the center read.

Both employees of the center and guests who were present there burst into applause.

As the sky was overcast, the rescue team has not managed to identify at once the place where the capsule with the ISS crew on board has landed.

Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev, German astronaut Alexander Gerst, and NASA astronaut Serena Aunon-Chancellor have delivered to Earth the pieces of evidence that Russian state space corporation Roscosmos and investigators need for their probe into the microfracture found in the orbital module of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft in late August.

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Earlier in December, the cosmonauts carried out a spacewalk to examine the hole in the spacecraft, found in late August. The cosmonauts cut off three pieces of micrometeoroid protection to take samples of the sealer and the surface surrounding the microfracture.