Expedition 28 Crew Returns to Earth Unharmed

After spending more than 164 days in space, Expedition 28 Commander Andrey Borisenko and flight engineers Alexander Samokutyaev and Ron Garan landed successfully last night, when their Soyuz space capsule touched down in the steppes of Kazakhstan.

Borisenko and Samokutyaev, both cosmonauts of the Russian Federal Space Agency (RosCosmos), were joined during their descent from the International Space Station (ISS) by NASA astronaut Ron Garan. The trio used the Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft to descend back to Earth.

Touchdown occurred at 9:59 am Friday local time (11:59:3p pm EDT Thursday, 0359 GMT Friday). Russian recovery teams were already deployed on the field, waiting for the Soyuz to arrive so that they could assist the three astronauts after spending so much time in orbit.

Bone and muscle mass loss characterize long-duration stays in space and, more often than not, space flyers need to undergo physiotherapy in order to recover their strengths. Emergency responders therefore helped the three out of their capsule, and then shipped them away to safety.

Soyuz TMA-21 undocked from the Zvezda module of the ISS at 8:38 pm Thursday (0038 GMT Friday), and spent only a couple of hours in space before reentering Earth's atmosphere. During the descent, the capsule was piloted by Samokutyaev

With the successful landing, Expedition 28 is now officially concluded. Expedition 29 is just beginning, currently manned by the three space flyers still aboard the ISS – NASA astronaut and Commander Mike Fossum, and flight engineers Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa (JAXA).

The rest of the Expedition 29 crew – made up of NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Anton Shkaplerov – will take off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on November 14, aboard the Soyuz 28 spacecraft. They will arrive at the ISS on November 16.

During their mission to the orbital outpost, the three astronauts who returned home today got the chance to part-take in the final two shuttle flights ever Endeavour and Atlantis conducted the STS-134 and STS-135 flights, respectively, helping augment ISS' capabilities for the coming years.

The Space Shuttle Program concluded with Atlantis' landing in July, so now NASA, RosCosmos, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are relying on Russian Soyuz space capsules and rockets to deliver astronauts to the ISS.