NASA astronaut Don Pettit and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner successfully completed their stay on the International Space Station and returned to Earth.
The crew departed the ISS at 5:57 p.m. ET aboard the Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft. It will take them about 27.5 hours to get from the station to their landing site in the Kazakh steppes, scheduled for 9:20 p.m. ET Sunday, according to a NASA press release.
Pettit, Ovchinin and Vagner have spent 220 days in space, orbiting the Earth 3,520 times and traveling 93.3 million miles since their Soyuz MS-26 docked with the ISS on September 11, marking the start of Expedition 72.
During their work on the ISS as part of Expedition 72, the crew members explored various space phenomena that could have a positive impact on life both on Earth and beyond.
The mission covered the study of modern life support systems, genetic sequencing in microgravity, pharmaceutical production and other topics.
According to NASA, this is already the fourth space flight for Pettit, who served as a flight engineer on Expeditions 71 and 72 to the ISS.
In total, he spent 590 days in orbit around the ISS.
Ovchinin also completed four missions to the ISS and spent 595 days in space, while Vagner completed two missions and spent 416 days on the space station.
After entering the Earth's atmosphere, the capsule will parachute land in Kazakhstan on Sunday evening.
The helicopter will deliver the three crew members to Karaganda, Kazakhstan, from where Pettit will fly on a NASA plane to Houston.
Ovchinin and Wagner will continue their journey to the training base in Star City, Russia.
NASA will broadcast the MS-26 spacecraft's deorbit, reentry, and landing beginning at 8 p.m. ET Sunday on NASA+.
Sourse: www.upi.com
