Expedition 26 Crew And Capsule Land Safely In Kazakhstan

WASHINGTON -- Expedition 26 Commander Scott Kelly and Russian Flight
Engineers Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka safely landed their
Soyuz spacecraft on the Kazakhstan steppe Wednesday, wrapping up a
five-month stay aboard the International Space Station.

Kaleri, the Soyuz commander, was at the controls of the spacecraft as
it undocked at 12:27 a.m. EDT from the station's Poisk module. The
trio landed at 3:54 a.m. (1:54 p.m. local time) at a site northeast
of the town of Arkalyk.

Working in frigid temperatures, Russian recovery teams were on hand to
help the crew exit the Soyuz and adjust to gravity. Kaleri and
Skripochka will return to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in
Star City, outside of Moscow, while Kelly will fly directly home to Houston.

The trio launched aboard the Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft from the
Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Oct. 8, 2010. As members of the
Expedition 25 and 26 crews, they spent 159 days in space, 157 of them
aboard the station.

During their mission, the Expedition 25 and 26 crew members worked on
more than 150 microgravity experiments in human research; biology and
biotechnology; physical and materials sciences; technology
development; and Earth and space sciences.

A quick succession of international space vehicles arrived on the
station's loading docks during Expedition 26. The Japanese
Kounotori2, or "white stork," H-II Transfer Vehicle 2; the Russian
cargo ship Progress 41; the European Jules Verne Automated Transfer
Vehicle; and space shuttle Discovery delivered more than 11 tons of
supplies necessary for working and living aboard the station.

Kelly has logged more than 180 days in space, and Kaleri has more than
770. Skripochka has completed his first space mission.
Expedition 27 Commander and Russian Cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev and
Flight Engineers Cady Coleman of NASA and Paolo Nespoli of the
European Space Agency remain aboard the station.

A new trio of Expedition 27 flight engineers, NASA astronaut Ron Garan
and Russian cosmonauts Andrey Borisenko and Alexander Samokutyaev,
will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome no earlier than March 29.

For more information about the space station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/station

For a schedule of upcoming flights to the station, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/stationflights

To view Coleman's and Garan's mission updates on their Twitter pages, visit:

http://www.twitter.com/Astro_Cady

and

http://www.twitter.com/Astro_Ron

Source: NASA

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