KOROLYOV (Sputnik) — The Russian mission control center told Sputnik early on Thursday that three crew members of the ISS have entered the Soyuz spacecraft and are set to return to Earth.
"Cosmonaut Sergey Ryazansky [of Roscosmos] and astronauts Paolo Nespoli [of ESA] and Randy Bresnik [of NASA] have left the ISS, entered the Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft and closed the hatch at 5:01 Moscow time [2:01GMT]," the center's spokesperson said.
Earlier in the day, Expedition 53 Commander Bresnik handed over station command to Roscosmos’s Alexander Misurkin in an official change of command ceremony, according to NASA.
The crew are expected to undock the spacecraft from the ISS in roughly two hours and set out on the trip home after completing 139 days in space. The landing in central Kazakhstan is expected at 2:38 p.m. local time (8:38GMT).
Russian astronaut Sergey Ryazansky has been sharing captivating images of the surface of the Earth taken from the ISS via social media accounts.
Some new photos of forest #fires in Southern #California… pic.twitter.com/fb8qKZE2Sj
— Сергей Рязанский (@SergeyISS) 8 декабря 2017 г.
This is #Patagonia. The photos were taken as part of the Uragan experiment. According to this experiment, we taking photos the glacier of Patagonia. The scientists analyses this photos and note the dynamic of deglaciation. pic.twitter.com/BArP7Qs3Zd
— Сергей Рязанский (@SergeyISS) 3 декабря 2017 г.
South #Sandwich Islands are a collection of bleak and remote islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. Most of the islands, rising steeply from the sea, are rugged and mountainous. At higher elevations the islands are permanently covered with ice and snow. pic.twitter.com/fbgzosllpd
— Сергей Рязанский (@SergeyISS) 1 декабря 2017 г.
Paolo Nespoli, who is originally from Italy, recently carried out a pizza-cooking experiment on the ISS, in the zero gravity environment. The astronauts published a video report.
