Space Station Crew Lands in Soyuz after Successful Mission
- From: baalke@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 12:27:12 -0700 (PDT)
April 8, 2009
Katherine Trinidad
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
katherine.trinidad@xxxxxxxx
Kelly Humphries
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
kelly.o.humphries@xxxxxxxx
RELEASE: 09-081
SPACE STATION CREW LANDS IN SOYUZ AFTER SUCCESSFUL MISSION
HOUSTON -- Two members of the 18th crew to live and work aboard the
International Space Station and a spaceflight participant returned to
Earth at 2:16 a.m. CDT Wednesday. NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, Russian
cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov and spaceflight participant Charles Simonyi
safely landed their Soyuz spacecraft in the steppes of southern
Kazakhstan.
The Expedition 18 crew members undocked their Soyuz from the station
at 10:55 p.m. April 7. The deorbit burn to slow the Soyuz and begin
its descent toward Earth began at 1:24 a.m. April 8. The landing was
moved to a more southerly landing site because of poor landing
conditions at the original site.
Fincke commanded the Expedition 18 mission, which saw the station go
to full power and begin water supply recycling. He spent 178 days in
orbit on this flight and has accumulated a full year in space during
his career. Launching to the station on Oct. 12, 2008, he also became
the first American to fly to and from the space station twice aboard
a Russian Soyuz. Fincke served almost 188 days as a flight engineer
on the Expedition 9 crew, which launched April 18, 2004, and returned
to Earth on Oct. 23, 2004.
Lonchakov completed his first long-duration spaceflight. He spent
nearly 12 days aboard the space shuttle Endeavour in 2001. He spent
nearly 11 days in space in 2002, launching aboard one Soyuz craft and
landing in another while carrying different crews to the space
station and back. With this mission, he has accumulated a total of
more than 200 days in space.
Simonyi, an American, spent 11 days on the station under a commercial
agreement with the Russian Federal Space Agency. He is the only
spaceflight participant to visit the station twice.
The Expedition 18 crew worked with a variety of experiments,
including
human life sciences, physical sciences and Earth observation. Many of
the experiments are designed to gather information about the effects
of long-duration spaceflight on the human body, which will help with
planning future missions to the moon and beyond. Other experiments
involved practical solutions to extended mission challenges such as
repairing electrical components and fighting fire in microgravity.
Before undocking, Fincke and Lonchakov bid farewell to the new
station
crew, Expedition 19 Commander Gennady Padalka and Flight Engineer
Mike Barratt, who launched to the station on a Soyuz March 26.
Remaining on the station with Padalka and Barratt as an Expedition 19
crew member is Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi
Wakata. Wakata launched to the orbiting laboratory on space shuttle
Discovery's STS-119 mission on March 15.
The Expedition 19 crew will be joined in orbit by Russian cosmonaut
Roman Romanenko, European Space Agency astronaut Frank De Winne and
Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk in May, inaugurating
the station's first six-person crew. It also will be the first time
that crew members from all five International Space Station partners
will be living aboard at the same time.
For information about the space station, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station
-end-
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