Following a 173-day mission in space, three astronauts from Expedition 50 returned home on Monday morning (April 10). The trio who made it safely back to Earth from the International Space Station are NASA's Shane Kimbrough — expedition commander — and Roscosmos' Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko.
After a journey of about three hours and 20 minutes in a Russian Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft, the astronauts landed in Kazakhstan, near the town of Dzhezkazgan, at 7:21 a.m. EDT (5:21 p.m. Kazakhstan time).
According to the schedule posted by NASA, the capsule closed hatch at 12:40 a.m. and undocked three hours later, at 3:57 a.m. Deorbit burn took place at 6:28 a.m., the agency informs.
Undocking and landing activities were streamed live by NASA TV, which started broadcasting the event as early as 3:30 a.m. On April 11, the channel is set to cover a post-landing interview with Kimbrough in Kazakhstan.
Upgraded MS Soyuz Capsule
Expedition 50 was launched Oct. 19, 2016 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The crew spent 171 days aboard an orbiting laboratory on the ISS, engaging in hundreds of experiments in the fields of biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science.
The capsule that brought the astronauts home is only the second MS variant of the Soyuz to return to Earth, after the veteran spacecraft underwent a series of upgrades.
The MS Soyuz was fitted with "more efficient solar panels, a new Kurs NA approach and docking system weighing less than half that of its predecessor, additional micro-meteoroid debris shielding, and a modified docking and attitude control engine," NASA states.
Expedition 51 Under Way
On April 9, Kimbrough handed over the command of ISS to NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who will continue working on the space station as leader of Expedition 51.
Her flight engineers — Oleg Novitskiy from Roscosmos and Thomas Pesquet from the European Space Agency — are expecting the upcoming arrival of Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikin and NASA's Jack Fischer, whose departure from Earth is scheduled on April 20.
Expedition 51 will only have five crew members due to Russia's decision to reduce the number of participating cosmonauts in 2017. This means Whitson, who holds the record for the most spacewalks by a woman, will remain aboard the ISS through Expedition 52 as well, to ensure the six-member crew prerequisite.
The highly experienced spacewoman went to the ISS in November 2016 and was due to journey back to Earth in June this year.
