Tracy Caldwell Dyson phones home Photo Credit/NASA TV
International Space Station crew members Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko of Russia and Tracy Caldwell Dyson on NASA made a safe descent to Earth early Saturday, touching down in north central Kazakhstan to end a 176 day mission.
The Soyuz carrying the three fliers landed under parachute at 1:23 a.m. EDT.
Skvortson, Kornienko and Caldwell Dyson were quickly joined by Russian helicopter borne search and recovery forces accompanied by a NASA flight surgeon and other agency officials.
All three appeared weary but animated and glad to be back on Earth. They were to be flown by helicopter than by jet aircraft to their training bases in Star City, Russia and the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Tex.
Their first bid to depart the station for Earth late Thursday was delayed when latches in the station’s Poisk docking module failed to release in response to commands from Russia’s Mission Control and the Soyuz control panel.
That meant an extra night aboard the station for Skvortson, Kornienko and Caldwell Dyson.
As they rested, station flight engineer Fyodor Yurchikhin made repairs to an electrical circuit in the docking mechanism that restored a command path to the Poisk latches.
The mechanism worked flawlessly as the three fliers departed the station at 10:02 p.m.
After circling the Earth once, the Soyuz fired breaking rockets on Saturday at 12:31 a.m., EDT, initiating the descent.
Friday’s departure brought the space station’s Expedition 24 mission to a close.
Skvortsov relinquished command of the orbital lab to NASA’s Doug Wheelock. Wheelock, Shannon Walker and Yurchikhin will have the orbital outpost to themselves for a little over two weeks.
Russians Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka and American Scott Kelly. are scheduled to lift off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Oct. 7. Their Soyuz spacecraft will reach the station two days later.