Three Russian astronauts returned safely to Earth on Thursday after a mission to the International Space Station, where they arrived last March.
The Soyuz MS-21 rocket, carrying astronauts Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveyev and Sergey Korsakov, landed at a designated location in the Kazakh steppes, 150 kilometers from the city of Zhezkazgan.
The trio departed for the space station about six months ago, which, for Artemyev, means that his third spaceflight has broken his personal record for total time in orbit, which now stands at 561 days. Matveyev and Korsakov, both on their first missions, record orbit times of 195 days each.
As the Soyuz capsule descended, using a large red and white parachute, Artemyev informed Mission Control that all crew members were safe.
Support crews landed helicopters a few minutes later, moving on to retrieve the space crew.
After a quick medical examination, the astronauts were taken to the Star City astronaut training center outside Moscow.
The space station is currently operated by Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency, NASA astronauts Bob Hines, Kjell Lindgren, Frank Rubio, and Jessica Watkins, and Russian space agency Roscosmos astronauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin.
Source: TSF
