14 DAY TRIAL // After glitch forced half of the crew of Expedition 24 to spend an extra day aboard the International Space Station, the three astronauts returned safely home this morning.
They landed at 1:23 am EDT (0523 GMT) near Arkalyk, in the steppes of Kazakhstan, aboard the Russian-built Soyuz TMA-18 spacecraft.
All the space fliers, who have just completed six-month missions aboard the orbital facility, are in perfect health, with a few exceptions caused by prolonged exposure to microgravity.
Being in space takes its toll on the human body, starting with bones and muscles. These tissues are severely reduced in size, and are impaired in function, while people are in space.
This happens because astronauts don't need to constantly overcome gravity in order to perform even the simplest of tasks, as it is the case on Earth.
The only way to prevent bone and muscle loss is to exercise daily, but even a hardcore workout routine cannot prevent all loss from occurring.
Aboard the returning space capsule were Expedition 24 Commander Alexander Skvortsov and flight engineer Mikhail Kornienko, both of them from the Russian Federal Space Agency (RosCosmos).
Joining them on the trip home was NASA astronaut and ISS flight engineer Tracy Caldwell Dyson.
The flight that brought the astronauts home was conducted by Skvortsov, who undocked the capsule from the Zvezda module at around 10:02 pm EDT.
The spacecraft was actually attached to the new Russian Poisk module, which is itself attached to Zvezda. The crew only managed to get to the ground on its second landing attempt.
The crew was originally planned to return to Earth yesterday, September 24, but a malfunction in the undocking mechanism holding the ISS and the Soyuz together prevented that from happening.
Russian Mission Control decided that the best course of action would be to ask the crew back into the station, and then delay the attempt by 24 hours, which is exactly what happened.
The undocking “problem prevented hooks on the Poisk side of the docking mechanism from opening. Station crew members installed a series of jumper cables, bypassing the sensor, and the Poisk module hooks retracted,” NASA officials say in a official press release.
Still aboard the space station are Expedition 25 Commander Doug Wheelock (NASA), and flight engineers Shannon Walker (NASA) and Fyodor Yurchikhin (RosCosmos).