Space Station Astronauts Return to Earth and Land Safely In Kazakhstan

With the Space Shuttle now retired, NASA is relying on the Russians to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS). After six months in orbit aboard the ISS, three crew members returned safely to the Earth with a landing in Kazakhstan.

The three members of Expedition 28 which came home on Thursday were Ron Garan, Flight Engineer Alexander Samokutyaev, and the expedition 28 commander Andrey Borisenko.

The Soyuz spacecraft carrying the three landed at 11:59 Eastern time on the 15th, which was actually 9:59 AM on the 16th local time in Russia. The crew was to have returned a week earlier, but after the still unexplained explosion of a Russian Progress 44 cargo ship launched towards the ISS, the return was delayed for safety concerns.

A replacement crew for the 3 astronauts still on board the ISS, and scheduled to return to Earth in November, is still awaiting a launch date. Until the cause for the loss of the Progress rocket can be determined, NASA does not plan to send anyone up to the ISS.

With the Russian rocket launches indefinitely postponed, and NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet now mothballed, the multi-billion dollar ISS will likely be abandoned in November of this year.

In their remaining months aboard the ISS, the crew of Expedition 29, commanded by NASA’s Mike Fossum will continue to conduct research and perform maintenance on the space station. Fossum leads the 29 team which also consists of Flight Engineers Satoshi Furukawa of Japan and Sergei Volkov of Russia.