ISS Expedition 38 Returns To Earth Safely
By NASA // March 11, 2014
russian Soyuz capsule lands in Kazakhstan
ABOVE: Expedition 38 Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Flight Engineer Michael Hopkins of NASA landed in Kazakhstan at 11:24 p.m. Monday night.
UPDATE
Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov and Expedition 38 Flight Engineers Mike Hopkins and Sergey Ryazanskiy landed in Kazakhstan at 11:24 p.m. Monday night. They landed inside the Soyuz TMA-10 spacecraft ending their mission after five-and-a-half months aboard the International Space Station. The trio undocked from the Poisk module at 8:02 p.m. Monday.
NASA • INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION – Three crew members aboard the International Space Station are scheduled to end almost six months on the orbiting laboratory tonight at 8 p.m. – See the Livestream right here on SpaceCoastDaily.com via NASA Television for complete coverage.
Expedition 38 Commander Oleg Kotov and Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and Flight Engineer Michael Hopkins of NASA will undock their Soyuz spacecraft from the station tonight at 8:02 p.m. EDT, heading for a landing in Kazakhstan, southeast of Dzhezkazgan at 11:24 p.m. (9:24 a.m. on March 11 local time in Dzhezkazgan).
The crew’s return will wrap up 166 days in space since launching from Kazakhstan on Sept. 26, 2013.
At the time of undocking, Expedition 39 will begin formally aboard the station under the command of Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the first Japanese commander of the complex.
Wakata and his crewmates, NASA Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio and Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, will operate the station as a three-person crew for two weeks until the arrival of three new crew members, U.S. astronaut Steve Swanson and Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev, who are scheduled to launch from Kazakhstan March 25, U.S. time.
NASA Television coverage began on Sunday morning with the change of command ceremony in which Kotov will turn over command of station operations to Wakata, and it will continue today. All the following times are in EDT.
Monday, March 10:
4:30 p.m. – Farewells and hatch closure (hatch closure scheduled at 4:45 p.m.)
7:45 p.m. – Undocking (undocking scheduled at 8:02 p.m.)
10:15 p.m. – Landing (landing scheduled at 11:24 p.m.)
