3 astronauts return to Earth from ISS
2013-03-16 19:00
Arkalyk - Three astronauts returned safely to Earth from the
International Space Station early Saturday, aboard a Russian capsule which
landed on the freezing Kazakhstan steppe, mission control said.
"There is landing!" flashed a Russian mission
control centre message transmitted by NASA. Rescue teams rushed to recover the
capsule carrying Nasa US astronaut Kevin Ford and Russian flight engineers Oleg
Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin.
"The crew felt normal through the descent and landing,
their mood is good," Russian agencies quoted the Russian mission control
official commentator.
It was the first space mission for Russian astronauts, and
the second for astronaut Kevin Ford, who was captain of the crew.
Russia's space agency Roscosmos confirmed the landing time
as 03:05GMT. "The landing was completed as planned," it said in a
statement. "The crew is feeling good. In the coming hours, they will be
transported to a permanent location for post-flight rehabilitation."
Saturday's landing had been delayed by a day due to poor
weather conditions, but rescue helicopters still had to brace for thick ground
fog and clouds which descended on the landing area and drastically reduced
visibility.
The Soyuz vessel landed upright and four workers were shown
prying the hatch open to extract the three men. They pulled the crew members
out of the capsule and helped them down a special slide to the ground they had
not touched since October.
Russian cosmonaut Evgeny Tarelkin pumped his fists as he sat
on the edge of the capsule. The smiling men were then bundled up by the Russian
rescue workers and sat recovering in special chairs.
Setbacks
They were carried to a helicopter within minutes and out of
the subzero temperatures, because no medical tent was brought to the location
by the skeleton evacuation crew that braved nearly zero visibility, the NASA
commentator said in footage broadcasted online by Nasa-TV.
The Soyuz TMA-06M Russian spacecraft had separated from the
ISS on schedule and entered the earth atmosphere at about 02:40GMT.
"Just closed the hatch on the departing crew. The echo
rang through the Station in many ways, we are now 3 onboard this huge ship. So
cool," wrote on Twitter Chris Hadfield, a Canadian Astronaut who is now
captain of the remaining ISS crewmembers; NASA astronaut Thomas Marshburn and
Russian cosmonaut Roman Romanenko.
The current crew will remain in space until May. They expect
to be joined by Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin and
Nasa astronaut Christopher Cassidy, who will be sent into space late this
month.
Since 2009 there have been teams of six astronauts and
cosmonauts aboard the space station, whose capacity was previously limited to
only three people.
Soyuz spacecraft, used since 1967 and, are currently the
only way to ferry astronauts to the ISS after the US retired its iconic space
shuttle programme in 2011.
Russia has suffered several recent setbacks in its space
programme, notably losing expensive satellites and an unmanned supply ship to
the ISS last year, but the manned missions have been flawless.
