Soyuz space capsule parachutes to Earth
Reuters
2012-04-27
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STORY: The Soyuz TMA-22 parachuted down onto the steppe in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan on Friday (April 27), landing on schedule and on target north of the town of Arkalyk after a three-hour descent from the orbital outpost. It touched down at 7:45 a.m. EDT (1145 GMT), less than four hours after undocking from the space station.
The cramped capsule brought veteran NASA astronaut Daniel Burbank and Russians Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin back to Earth after nearly six months aboard the ISS.
Shkaplerov, the first to be pulled from the capsule resting on its side on the steppe, smiled and waved as support personnel sat him in a chair and wrapped a blue blanket over his legs, despite temperatures over 70 F (21 C).
Ivanishin followed with a broad grin and then Burbank, who chuckled as he answered questions from medical personnel.
Their trip to the station in November was the first since the U.S. space agency NASA ended its 30-year shuttle program, leaving the 16 nations investing in the $100-billion station to rely solely on Russia to ferry crews for the time being.
Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA's Don Pettit and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers remain aboard the ISS, where they arrived in December.
STORY: The Soyuz TMA-22 parachuted down onto the steppe in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan on Friday (April 27), landing on schedule and on target north of the town of Arkalyk after a three-hour descent from the orbital outpost. It touched down at 7:45 a.m. EDT (1145 GMT), less than four hours after undocking from the space station.
The cramped capsule brought veteran NASA astronaut Daniel Burbank and Russians Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin back to Earth after nearly six months aboard the ISS.
Shkaplerov, the first to be pulled from the capsule resting on its side on the steppe, smiled and waved as support personnel sat him in a chair and wrapped a blue blanket over his legs, despite temperatures over 70 F (21 C).
Ivanishin followed with a broad grin and then Burbank, who chuckled as he answered questions from medical personnel.
Their trip to the station in November was the first since the U.S. space agency NASA ended its 30-year shuttle program, leaving the 16 nations investing in the $100-billion station to rely solely on Russia to ferry crews for the time being.
Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, NASA's Don Pettit and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers remain aboard the ISS, where they arrived in December.
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