A Soyuz capsule with U.S. astronaut, two Russian cosmonauts returns to Earth from the International Space Station
MOSCOW — A Soyuz capsule carrying two Russians and one American from the International Space Station landed Sunday in Kazakhstan, ending their seven-month research assignment.
According to Russian space agency Roscosmos, the capsule carrying cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner and astronaut Don Pettit landed on the Kazakh steppe near the city of Zhezkazgan at 6:20 a.m. local time. Roscosmos said the parachute-assisted landing was a trouble-free descent.
The trio returned after spending 220 days in space and orbiting the Earth 3,520 times, NASA said in a statement. Pettit returned to Earth on his 70th birthday, the agency noted.
NASA said that it was following its routine post-landing medical checks and that the crew will return to the recovery staging area in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Pettit will then board a NASA plane bound for the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston, while Roscosmos said Ovchinin and Vagner will depart for a training base in Star City, Russia.
On Friday, Ovchinin handed over command of the ISS to Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi in a change-of-command ceremony.
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