International space crew wraps up nearly four months in orbit

A veteran Russian cosmonaut, a Japanese flight engineer and a NASA scientist-astronaut undocked from the International Space Station and returned to Earth Saturday, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out a 115-day mission. With Soyuz MS-01 commander Anatoly Ivanishin at the controls, flanked on the left by flight engineer Takuya Onishi and on the right by NASA’s Kate Rubins, the charred descent module settled to a jarring rocket-and-parachute-assisted touchdown east of Dzhezkazgan at 11:58 p.m. EDT (GMT-4; 9:58 a.m. Sunday local time). Russian recovery crews deployed nearby reached the capsule within minutes to help the returning station fliers out of the cramped descent module as they began re-adjusting to the unfamiliar pull of Earth’s gravity — and its weather. The crew was greeted by an overcast sky and temperatures in the low 30s Fahrenheit. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 30)