After nearly six months aboard the International, the Expedition 18 crew returned to Earth today, making a picture-perfect landing on the chilly steppes of Kazakhstan. Along with two-time space tourist Charles Syimonyi, outgoing station commander Mike Fincke and Russian flight engineer Yury Lonchakov touched down in their Soyuz TMA-13 spacecraft at 3:16 a.m. EDT
VIDEO: LANDING SITE ACTIVITIES VIDEO: LANDING REPLAY VIDEO: SOYUZ DE-ORBIT BURN VIDEO: SOYUZ TMA-13 UNDOCKING VIDEO: UNDOCKING VIEWED FROM ISS VIDEO: SOYUZ TMA-13 UNDOCKING NASA TV COVERAGE VIDEO: FAREWELL CEREMONY AND HATCH CLOSURE VIDEO: EXPEDITION 18/19 CHANGE OF COMMAND CEREMONY The Soyuz vehicle undocked from the space station at 11:55 p.m. Tuesday night. One orbit later, Lonchakov fired retro-rockets for 4 1/2 minutes to slow the craft down by 258 mph and begin the 42 minute descent to Earth. Russian mission control lost communication with the crew just before the spacecraft began the fiery descent through the atmosphere, leaving controllers to wait for confirmation of a normal re-entry. Minutes later, the communication link was regained and Lonchakov reported that the Soyuz and passengers were doing fine. The Soyuz descent module separated from the instrument and propulsion modules on time, avoiding the kind of bone-jarring ballistic descent that plagued two out of the previous three re-entries. Hanging beneath its billowing red and white main parachute, Soyuz TMA-13 slowly dropped to the ground. A few meters above the landing site, a huge cloud of dust kicked up as small braking rockets at the bottom of the module fired to slow the descent and soften the landing. The module, scorched from the heat of re-entry, touched down just a few kilometers from the intended landing spot, a proverbial "hole-in-one" in terms of Soyuz landings. After landing, winds took hold of the parachute and pulled the capsule on its side, which is not uncommon after a Soyuz touches down. The three men inside were able to egress the vehicle easily through the hatch at the top of the module. Recovery crews aboard helicopters were able to reach the landing site within minutes and, less than 15 minutes after touchdown, all three crewmembers were outside, resting in reclining chairs as they got their bearings back after spending time in weightlessness. Fincke and Lonchakov completed a 178 day mission, 176 on the space station, since launching to space October 12 on board the same Soyuz spacecraft that took them home. Finishing his second long-duration stay aboard the station, Fincke, a colonel in the U.S. Air Force, has amassed a total of 366 days in space. He previously served as flight engineer and NASA Space Station science officer on Expedition 9 in 2004. His second mission puts him in third place, behind Peggy Whitson and Michael Foale on the list of U.S. astronauts with the most flight experience. Whitson and Foale have accumulated 377 and 374 days in space, respectively. Lonchakov, a colonel in the Russian Air Force, has amassed 201 days in space over three missions. He was a mission specialist on STS-100, which visited the orbital outpost in 2001, and he returned to the station in 2002 as part of the Soyuz TMA-1 crew. Simonyi, the only space "tourist" to fly more than once, has accumulated 27 days in space during trips to the space station 13 and 14 days long. Simonyi's new wife was at the landing site to welcome him home from his second, and he says, last spaceflight. Simonyi said before launch that he promised his wife that this flight would be his last. (The Spacearium / Space Media Corporation)
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