Coming Home to Our Fragile Oasis: Trio Lands Safely

The Expedition 33/34 crew aboard the International Space Station have returned home to Earth after spending 144 days in space.

The crew made up of NASA Astronaut Kevin Ford, and cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin were scheduled to return home on March 15th, but due to adverse weather conditions at the landing site in Kazakhstan, the return home was delayed, allowing the trio to spend an extra day in space.

The departing Soyuz as seen after undocking from the ISS

Finally, after 142 days aboard the ISS, it was time for Ford, Tarelkin and Novitskiy to return home. The trio bid farewell to their crew mates Chris Hadfield, Tom Marshburn and Roman Romanenko(who will return to Earth in mid-May), and hatches between the departing Soyuz and the space station were closed at 9:38 p.m. GMT. 

A few hours later, the Soyuz TMA-06M crew undocked from the International Space Station. Soyuz commander Oleg Novitskiy was at the controls of the spacecraft as it undocked at 12:43 a.m. from the Poisk Mini-Research Module 2, while the station was flying over northeastern Mongolia. The undocking officially marked the beginning of Expedition 35.

From left: Tarelkin, Novitskiy and Ford give thumbs up a few hours after landing

Following a series of deorbit burns, the Soyuz made its way through the Earth's atmosphere, with the spacecraft landing in the steppe of Kazakhstan, northeast of the remote town of Arkalyk at an estimated time of 4:08 a.m. GMT. In freezing, foggy conditions, search and rescue and recovery forces arrived quickly, extracted the crew from the Soyuz, and sat them down as the trio were checked to see if they were alright,  as they adjusted to life back on Earth.

Hadfield, Marshburn and Romanenko will remain aboard the orbiting complex as a three-person crew until the March 28 launch and docking of Expedition 35 Flight Engineers Chris Cassidy, Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin.

New Trio Launches to Space Station

At 11:51 GMT, a Soyuz rocket carrying three astronauts lifted off from Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstan, bound for the International Space Station.

The reliable Soyuz FG rocket safely launched from the Russian leased cosmodrome in near perfect conditions. After nine minutes of powered flight, the crew reached an altitude of 250 miles sbove Earth. The spacecraft will continue to chase down its target- the International Space Station, which is expected to take 34 orbits, or just over two days.

The Soyuz TMA-06M crew consists of cosmonaut commander Oleg Novitskiy, Flight Engineer Evgeny Tarelkin, and NASA astronaut Kevin Ford. Both Novitskiy and Tarelkin are rookie space farers, and have never flown in space, whereas NASA's Kevin Ford flew on the Space Shuttle as it's pilot on STS-128 in 2009.

This will be the second time Ford will spend time aboard the space station, having visited during his assembly mission three years ago. However, rather than being up there for only 8 days, Ford and his crew mates will spend nearly six months aboard the orbiting laboratory, conducting experiments in microgravity, as well as some earth observation.

When they arrive, they will be greeted by NASA astronaut and current space station commander; Sunita Williams, who is currently aboard station alongside veteran cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, and Japanese astronaut Aki Hoshide.

When asked what is he most looking forward to doing when he arrives on the space station, he replied; "It's going to be great!"
"I'm looking forward to some Sunday afternoons seeing the whole planet, and doing some things I didn't get to do before"

Ford and his crew will return to Earth in their Soyuz capsule in March 2013.