14 DAY TRIAL // The Expedition 11 landed back on Earth Monday at 9:09 p.m. EDT, after undocking from the international space station at 5:49 p.m. EDT.
Commander Sergei Krikalev, Flight Engineer John Phillips and Spaceflight Participant US millionaire businessman Greg Olsen boarded a Soyuz TMA-6 Monday afternoon for re-entry in Kazakhstan.
The station's new crewmembers arrived at the station on Oct. 3. Expedition 12 Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev will mark the fifth anniversary of a human presence aboard the station next month. They will stay on the orbital outpost until next April.
Commander Sergei Krikalev and NASA Science Officer John Phillips, 11th crew of the space station, spent more than 179 days in space. Space tourist Gregory Olsen, who flew to the space station with the Expedition 12 crew, spent about eight days aboard the ISS, making some experiments. He was aboard under a contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency.
Olsen, 60, paid Space Adventures 20 million dollars for a seat aboard the capsule and eight days of gazing down at the Earth from the ISS station, 230 miles (370 kilometers) up.
The Soyuz TMA spacecraft undocked from the station at 5:49 p.m. EDT. Its re-entry was flawless. It brought the three men aboard to a landing about 53 miles northeast of Arkalyk, after 179 days and 23 minutes in space for the E11 crew. The recovery team reached the capsule in minutes.