Back safely

Three crew members from the International Space Station returned to Earth on Friday. The landing in Kazakhstan wrapped up a 168-day mission for one cosmonaut and a brief 10-day visit for two, as well as returned a cache of samples from several NASA human research experiments aboard the station.


Expedition 44 commander Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) and visiting crew members Andres Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) and Aidyn Aimbetov of the Kazakh Space Agency touched down at 8:51 p.m. EDT (6:51 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 12, Kazakhstan time) southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan.


Padalka, who launched in March, now has logged a record 879 days in space on five flights, more than two months more than cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, the previous record holder.


During his time in the orbiting complex, Padalka ventured outside the confines of the space station for one spacewalk to retrieve Russian experiments. He also piloted his Soyuz spacecraft in a relocation maneuver in August that freed the Poisk module for the arrival of a new Soyuz.


Mogensen and Aimbetov spent 10 days in space, delivering a new Soyuz spacecraft that will return NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko of Roscosmos at the end of their one-year mission in March. During their short time in orbit, they participated in a number of experiments on behalf of their respective space agencies, focusing on the areas of human research, Earth observation and technology development.