Shuttle/Shuttle Concept Restart: Fwd: Crew of the ISS Expedition 38/39 returns to Earth

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: May 14, 2014 1:49:35 PM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Crew of the ISS Expedition 38/39 returns to Earth

TPK crew "Soyuz TMA-11M" returned to Earth
05.14.2014 6:15
May 14 at 5.57 Moscow time in a given area southeast of Zhezkazgan (Kazakhstan) landed lander transport manned vehicle (WPK) "Soyuz TMA-11M." Landing has passed normally. On board the International Space Station (ISS) returned to Earth Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio (USA), and Koichi Wakata astronaut JAXA (Japan).
Spacecraft "Soyuz TMA-11M" was launched on November 7, 2013 with the help of the carrier rocket "Soyuz-FG", which was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. After 6 hours of flight took place successfully docked TPK "Soyuz TMA-11M" with a research module "Dawn" (MRM1) Russian segment (RS).
After undocking the ship from the Russian segment of the ISS orbit continues ISS-40 of the Russian Federal Space Agency cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronaut Steven Swanson.
Roscosmos press service

Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin. 532 days in space
05/14/2014 17:13
Today ended the third spaceflight Roscosmos cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin. Michael Vladyslavovych led him to the composition of the 39th expedition to the ISS, which is called one of the most unusual in the history of space exploration. Mikhail Tyurin (Roscosmos), Koichi Wakata (JAXA) and Rick Mastracchio (NASA) has been assigned an honorable mission to deliver to the ISS of the Olympic torch.
International Space Station Mikhail Tyurin together with his colleagues spent more than 600 sessions of 50 scientific experiments. Moreover, despite a heavy work schedule of the Russian segment of the ISS astronauts sent to the Earth videopozdravleniya on the occasion of all the major holidays of the country - read poems in honor of March 8, congratulated Russia May Day, launched on the occasion of the Victory Banner of the 69th anniversary of the Great Victory, as well as communicate Russian President Vladimir Putin on the occasion of the Day of Cosmonautics, participated in the teleconference between the cities of Russia and in such actions as «SMS to the ISS," "George Ribbon" and "Total dictation."
His first space flight Mikhail Tyurin implemented from August 10 to December 17, 2001. In 2003 he was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation for their courage and heroism in a space flight.From 18 September 2006 to 21 April 2007 MV Tyurin as commander of the "Soyuz TMA-9" and ISS flight engineer on the program of the 14th basic expedition made a second trip into space.
The total length of stay in orbit Mikhail Vladislavovich is 532 days, he made five spacewalks total duration of 25 hours 31 minutes.
Roscosmos press service

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The crew of Soyuz TMA-11M - M. Tyurin, R. Mastracchio and K. Wakata - are back on Earth!
May 14, 2014
At 05:58 Moscow Time, the descent vehicle of Soyuz TMA-11M manned transportation spacecraft landed in its designated landing area 147 kilometers to the South-East of Jezkazgan in the Republic of Kazakhstan. All the operations associated with the descent, search and landing of the descent vehicle were completed normally.

May 14, 2014
The crew of Soyuz TMA-11M - M. Tyurin, R. Mastracchio and K. Wakata - are back on Earth!
At 05:58 Moscow Time, the descent vehicle of Soyuz TMA-11M manned transportation spacecraft landed in its designated landing area 147 kilometers to the South-East of Jezkazgan in the Republic of Kazakhstan. All the operations associated with the descent, search and landing of the descent vehicle were completed normally.
Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, US astronaut Richard Mastracchio, and Japanese Space Agency Koichi Wakata have completed their mission to the International Space Station (ISS) under the program of Expedition ISS-37/38/39.
At the Mission Control Center near Moscow (MCC-M), the work in support of the spacecraft de-orbiting maneuvers and re-entry, the search for the landed descent vehicle and evacuation of the crew from it was performed under the supervision of the State Commission for Flight Tests of Manned Space Systems (The Chairman is the Head of the Federal Space Agency O.N. Ostapenko) and the Technical Management for Flight Tests of Manned Space Systems (headed by President and General Designer of the S.P. Korolev RSC Energia V.A. Lopota).
During re-entry the flight of the spacecraft was controlled by the Lead Operations Control Team (Flight Director is the First deputy general designer of RSC Energia V.A. Soloviev) working at MCC-M in cooperation with the specialists of the Air and Space Search and Rescue, other Russian organizations and services, as well as the US Mission Control Center in Houston.
The final descent and landing operations of the spacecraft were witnessed by representatives of Roskosmos and foreign space agencies, Russian companies and organizations involved in the ISS program who were present at MCC-M.
The work onboard the ISS is continued by participants in the 40-th Expedition to the space station: Russian cosmonauts A. Skvortsov, O. Artemyev and US astronaut S. Swanson.

For reference:
RSC Energia is the prime manned space flight organization in the Russian rocket and space industry, responsible for the development of the ISS Russian Segment, its integration into the Space Station and its operation, including development and operation of the principal modules of the Segment (Zvezda, Pirs, Poisk, Rassvet, Nauka etc.), manufacturing, launch and operation of Soyuz TMA and Progress M spacecraft.
The space mission of M. Tyurin, T. Mastracchio and K. Wakata lasted about 188 days.

© 2000 - 2014 S.P. Korolev RSC "Energia"

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May 13, 2014
RELEASE 14-134

Space Station Crew Returns to Earth, Lands Safely in Kazakhstan
Three crew members from the International Space Station (ISS) returned to Earth Tuesday after 188 days in space, during which they orbited Earth more than 3,000 times and traveled almost 79.8 million miles.
Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA and Soyuz commander Mikhail Tyurin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) touched down southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan at 9:58 p.m. EDT (7:58 a.m., May 14, in Dzhezkazgan).
Medical personnel examine International Space Station Expedition 39 crew members (from left to right) Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Mikhail Tyurin of the Russian Federal Space Agency and Rick Mastracchio of NASA following their safe landing in a Soyuz capsule southeast of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan at 9:58 p.m. EDT May 13 (7:58 a.m. May 14 local time).
Image Credit:
NASA TV

During Expedition 39, the crew participated in a variety of research, including a human immune system activation and suppression study and a protein crystal growth research study looking for proteins responsible for Huntington's disease and other neurodegenerative conditions. The crew also installed a new plant growth chamber designed to expand in-orbit food production capabilities.
One of several key research focus areas during Expedition 39 was human health management for long duration space travel, as NASA and Roscosmos prepare for two crew members to spend one year aboard the space station in 2015.
During their time aboard the orbiting laboratory, the trio welcomed three cargo spacecraft. A Russian ISS Progress cargo vehicle docked to the station, bringing tons of supplies, and another Progress craft conducted tests on an upgraded automated rendezvous system. In January, Orbital Sciences' Cygnus spacecraft arrived at the station as part of Orbital's first commercial resupply mission. In April, SpaceX launched its Dragon spacecraft to the station for the SpaceX-3 cargo resupply mission. Both capsules were loaded with cargo and science experiments. This was Orbital's first of at least eight cargo flights to the space station, and it was the third of at least 12 flights for SpaceX scheduled through 2016 under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract.
Mastracchio, Tyurin and Wakata arrived at the station Nov. 7 bearing the torch used to light the Olympic flame at Fisht Stadium in Sochi, Russia, which marked the start of the 2014 Winter Games in February.
During his time on the orbiting complex, Mastracchio ventured outside the confines of the space station for three contingency spacewalks. The first two were to remove and replace a faulty cooling pump, and the third to remove and replace a failed backup computer relay box.
The space station is more than a scientific research platform. It also serves as a test bed to demonstrate new technology. With the arrival of SpaceX-3, the Expedition 39 crew unloaded new climbing legs for NASA's Robonaut 2 (R2) humanoid robot. Designed to take over routine, dirty and potentially dangerous tasks from astronauts, R2 will take its first steps toward mobility after the legs are attached and tested in the coming months. Further upgrades and a battery backpack, necessary for the robot to operate completely untethered, will launch to the station later this year. Ground controllers using the station's robotic arm also installed a new high-definition Earth-viewing camera system, referred to as HDEV, on the outside of the Columbus lab. HDEV is comprised of four commercially available HD cameras and streams online live video of Earth to online viewers around the world.
Having completed his fourth space station mission, Mastracchio now has spent 228 days in space. Wakata has spent 348 days in space on four flights and served as the first Japanese commander of the International Space Station. Tyurin has accumulated 532 days in space on three flights, making him 13th on the all-time endurance list.
Expedition 40 now is operating aboard the station, with Steve Swanson of NASA in command of the orbiting laboratory. Swanson and his crewmates, Flight Engineers Oleg Artemyev and Alexander Skvortsov of Roscosmos, will tend to the station as a three-person crew until the arrival in two weeks of three new crewmates: Reid Wiseman of NASA, Maxim Suraev of Roscosmos and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency. Wiseman, Suraev and Gerst are scheduled to launch from Kazakhstan May 28.
For more information on the International Space Station and its crews, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/station
For b-roll and other media resources, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/stationnews
For NASA TV streaming video, schedules and downlink information, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv
-end-
Joshua Buck
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
jbuck@nasa.gov
Dan Huot
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
daniel.g.huot@nasa.gov

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Descent capsule of Soyuz spaceship lands in Kazakhstan's steppe as scheduled
Non-political
May 14, 7:05 UTC+4
A rescue service aircraft picked up the signal of the ultra-short-frequency transmitter of the capsule immediately after the latter emerged from plasma and tracked it to the landing spot
© AP/TASS TV
KOROLYOV, May 14. /ITAR-TASS/. The descent capsule of the spaceship Soyuz TMA-11M with three spacemen from among the ISS-38 space mission landed in Kazakhstan's steppe as scheduled at 05:58, Moscow time, Wednesday, an official at the Flight Control Center (FCC) told Itar-Tass.
Search-and-rescue groups are moving towards the landing site.
"The capsule landed in the pre-planned area, approximately 147 km south east of the Kazakhstani city of Dzhezkazgan," the FCC official pointed out.
A rescue service aircraft picked up the signal of the ultra-short-frequency transmitter of the capsule immediately after the latter emerged from plasma and tracked it to the landing spot.
The returnees Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, American astronaut Richard Mastracchio, and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata of JAXA have worked in orbit for more than 187 days.
The ISS three-member crew remaining in orbit are Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and American astronaut Steve Swanson who assumed the functions of ISS commander following Koichi Wakata's returning to Earth.
Next crew of the ISS 40/42 long-duration space expedition will consist of Russian cosmonaut Maxim Surayev, American astronaut Reid Wiseman, and German astronaut Alexander Gerst.

© Copyright 2014 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved.

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Soyuz Space Capsule Returns Astronauts Safely to Earth
Crew of the ISS Expedition 38/39 returns to Earth
© RIA Novosti. Roman Sokolov
11:12 14/05/2014

KOROLYOV, May 14 (RIA Novosti) – Three astronauts made a safe return to Earth from the International Space Station on Wednesday, landing in Kazakhstan in a Soyuz TMA-11M capsule, a spokesman for the Mission Control Center told RIA Novosti.
The Soyuz space capsule has returned Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Koichi Wakata and US astronaut Rick Mastracchio after around six months on the ISS, the spokesman said.
"The Soyuz capsule with three crew members landed in the intended area, some 148 kilometers from the city of Zhezkazgan [Kazakhstan]. The hatches are open," the spokesman said.
The three spacemen were in a "satisfactory condition" as they were extracted from the capsule by the search and rescue team, he said.
During the work on the ISS, Russian cosmonaut Tyurin took part in more than 600 sessions of 50 experiments, 49 of which had been launched in previous expeditions and two experiments (Biopolimer and Otklik) were new.
Tyurin is scheduled to land at the Chkalovsky Airport, 31 kilometers northeast of Moscow, at 2:30 pm Moscow time (1030 GMT).
Russians cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev and NASA astronaut Steve Swanson will remain aboard the station until May 28.

© 2014 RIA Novosti

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Soyuz TMA-11M lands in Kazakhstan
05/13/2014 10:55 PM Filed in: Space News | International Space Station | Russian Space
Editor's note...
Posted at 01:50 PM ET, 05/13/14: Three station fliers set for undocking
Updated at 07:00 PM ET, 05/13/14: Soyuz TMA-11M undocks from space station (10grafld-pickup11thgraf: After moving a X X X)
Updated at 10:40 PM ET, 05/13/14: Soyuz TMA-11M lands in Kazakhstan (22grafld-pickup21stgraf: After initial medical X X X)
By WILLIAM HARWOOD
CBS News

A Japanese astronaut, a veteran Russian cosmonaut and a NASA flight engineer strapped into a Soyuz ferry craft, undocked from the International Space Station and fell back to Earth Tuesday, plunging back through the atmosphere for a jarring rocket-assisted landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out a 188-day stay in orbit.

The international crew's return aboard a Russian spacecraft is the first such flight since Russia's annexation of Crimea, the imposition of U.S. and European sanctions and escalating Cold War rhetoric that stands in stark contrast to the close cooperation that has been the hallmark of the International Space Station program.

In the latest space-related tit for tat, Dmitry Rogozin, Russia's deputy prime minister for space and defense, told Russian news agencies future sales of RD-180 engines, which power the first stage of United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 rocket, will not be permitted for launches of U.S. military payloads.
The view from a space station camera as the Soyuz TMA-11M moved away after undocking. (Credit: NASA TV)

The Atlas 5 is routinely used for Pentagon missions and its reliance on Russian engines has come under fire in the wake of the Ukraine crisis. ULA competitor SpaceX has argued that payments for the RD-180 violate Obama Administration sanctions, but a temporary injunction was lifted last week based on assurances by the departments of Treasury, State and Justice that the sales were compliant.

In any case, ULA has 16 RD-180s in the United States and it's not yet known what impact Rogozin's statements about a presumed sales ban might have over the long run.

Both sides say the space station program is not affected by sanctions or other diplomatic hurdles and the Russians continue to honor their lucrative contract with NASA to carry U.S. and partner astronauts to and from the space station aboard Soyuz spacecraft at more than $70 million a seat.

But Rogozin said Russia was not yet committed to operating the space station through 2024 as planned by NASA and the Obama administration. He said any decision to support the lab beyond the previously agreed-on target of 2020 would depend on a cost-benefit analysis, implying extended operations might not be approved.

The Soyuz landing and another Soyuz launch later this month to carry three fresh crew members to the orbital complex highlight NASA's lack of an operational crew-carrying spacecraft of its own and the agency's dependence on the Russians for basic space transportation until at least 2017, when a U.S. ferry craft should be ready for service.

That assumes the program receives the necessary funding from Congress and the station program continues to operate smoothly, with the full cooperation of all the international partners. The station cannot be safely operated by either side without the other.

The station flies 260 miles above the complex geopolitical landscape and from the crew's perspective, the Ukraine crisis has had no impact on day-to-day operations. Entry preparations proceeded normally, the Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft was successfully checked out and the stage was set for three members of the station's six-man crew to return to Earth.

With commander Mikhail Tyurin at the controls, flanked on the left by flight engineer Rick Mastracchio and on the right by outgoing Expedition 39 commander Koichi Wakata, the Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft undocked from the Russian Rassvet module at 6:36 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) as the two spacecraft sailed 260 miles above Mongolia.

After moving a safe distance away, Tyurin monitored an automated deorbit rocket firing, a four-minute 41-second "burn" designed to slow the spacecraft by about 286 mph, just enough to drop the far side of its orbit deep into the atmosphere.
NASA photographer Bill Ingalls captured the moment of landing an instant after the Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft's braking rockets fired. (Credit: NASA)

A half-hour later, just before reaching the top of the discernible atmosphere at an altitude of about 62 miles, the three modules making up the Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft separated, leaving the heat shield-equipped central crew cabin on its own for a northeasterly descent toward the landing site in Kazakhstan.

After plunging to an altitude of just under seven miles, the crew compartment's main parachute unfurled to slow the descent even more and a few minutes later, the crew module settled to a jarring rocket-assisted touchdown near the town of Dzhezkazgan at 9:58:30 p.m. (7:58 a.m. Wednesday local time).

Landing marked the final chapter in a mission covering 3,008 orbits and 79.7 million miles since launch Nov. 6.

"I was a flight engineer on the space shuttle, but I didn't have my own set of controls," Mastracchio said in a pre-launch interview. "Here in the Soyuz, I'm also the flight engineer but I'm actually going to be helping control the vehicle along with the commander.

"So I'm looking forward to having that front row seat, if you will, and actually helping operate the vehicle."

Learning how to operate a spacecraft is challenging under any circumstances. It was especially tough to do in a second language.

"It's very, very challenging," Mastracchio said. "Being an engineer, I have the skills to learn how to fly a vehicle and how to operate a vehicle, but the language skill was very challenging for me. It's not as easy as it sounds to fly a spacecraft while speaking a foreign language! Again, a big challenge, which made it very interesting to me."

As usual with Soyuz landings, Russian recovery forces deployed near the landing site reached the spacecraft within a few minutes to help the returning space fliers get out of the cramped crew module as they began the process of re-adapting to Earth's gravity after six months in weightlessness.

In keeping with Russian traditions, Tyurin, Mastracchio and Wakata were carried from the capsule to nearby recliners where they could relax, enjoy their first fresh air in months and make satellite phone calls to friends and family. All three looked relaxed and in good spirits.

Tyurin has now logged 532 days in space during three space flights, moving him up to 13th on the list of most experienced space fliers. Wakata's total through two shuttle flights and a previous station stay increased to 348 days while Mastracchio's numbers, including three shuttle flights, climbed to 228 days.
Soyuz commander Mikhail Tyurin is helped out of the descent module after landing in Kazakhstan. (Credit: NASA)

After initial medical checks, all three were expected to board Russian helicopters for a short flight to a staging base in Karaganda. From there, Mastracchio and Wakata planned to board a NASA jet for the long flight back to the Johnson Space Center in Houston while Tyurin heads home to Star City near Moscow.

During the course of their stay aboard the station, Tyurin, Mastracchio and Wakata delivered an Olympic torch to celebrate the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi and Mastracchio participated in three spacewalks, two to repair the station's cooling system and one to replace a balky computer.

The crew also carried out extensive troubleshooting to recover from a potentially catastrophic spacesuit water leak last summer and operated a full slate of scientific experiments.

Left behind in orbit were Expedition 40 commander Steven Swanson, Soyuz TMA-12M commander Alexander Skvortsov and flight engineer Oleg Artemyev. They will have the space station to themselves until May 28 when Soyuz TMA-13M commander Maxim Suraev, NASA flight engineer G. Reid Wiseman and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst blast off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for a planned four-orbit flight to the lab.

The space station is generally healthy, but engineers are continuing to troubleshoot an electrical glitch last week that took down one of the eight electrical power channels driven by the lab's U.S. solar arrays.

Equipment on channel 3A, including the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer and an experimental laser communications package, briefly lost power but flight controllers quickly switched affected systems to channel 3B without any major impact.

It is not yet clear what caused the remote bus isolator to "trip open" May 8, but a similar problem occurred in 2012 and engineers are reviewing telemetry to determine how to restore channel 3A to normal operation.
NASA flight engineer Rick Mastracchio chats with recovery crews after being helped from the Soyuz TMA-11M spacecraft following landing in Kazakhstan to close out a 188-day mission. (Credit: NASA)

During a change-of-command ceremony Monday, Wakata, a shuttle veteran and the first Japanese to command the space station, thanked his crewmates for "an exciting time" in orbit.

"I had the honor of serving as commander, which was an incredible opportunity for me to extend my knowledge and experience in managing this complex outpost of humans in space," he said. "And I couldn't have done this job without the superb performance of my fellow crewmates."

Turning over command to Swanson, a former shuttle crewmate, Wakata offered his "congratulations and best wishes for a successful mission."

Swanson returned the praise, thanking Wakata, Tyurin and Mastracchio for sharing their experience.

"When we first got here, you guys were very kind to us, you gave us so much friendship, it meant so much to us," Swanson said. "And it makes it a little bit of a sad moment for me, because I've come to grow to like you guys very much. I would wish we could be up here for a long time, but I know you have to go.

"But again, thank you all for the experience you guys have given us, the knowledge you have given us. You have together a combined 11 spaceflights and over three years of time in space, which is just amazing, and that knowledge you have given us is fantastic. I really appreciate it."

Swanson then spoke to Wakata personally, saying "your leadership was fantastic."

"You set an example that will be very hard to match," Swanson said. "Your diligence, your endless energy, your desire to make the station as best as it possibly could be was just a pleasure to watch. I'm truly very proud to have been a part of your crew."

© 2014 William Harwood/CBS News

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Three astronauts land back on Earth in Soyuz capsule
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View gallery
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Moscow (AFP) - Three astronauts, including a Russian and an American, touched down safely on Earth Wednesday aboard a Soyuz capsule, the first such landing since Russia's relationship with the West slumped amid the Ukraine crisis.
The returning crew consisted of Japan's Koichi Wakata, who was the first ever Japanese commander of an ISS space mission, as well as NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin.
They landed safely at 0159 GMT in the Kazakh steppes after spending more than half a year aboard the orbiting International Space Station.
The landing was the first since Russia's relationship with the West hit its lowest point in decades over the annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula by Moscow in mid-March and its involvement in the ensuing Ukraine crisis.
NASA in April announced that it was cutting space cooperation with Russia over Moscow's Ukraine policies, but that work at the space station would not be affected.
In what appeared to be a retaliatory move, Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin said Tuesday that Moscow had no plans to keep the station past 2020, even though NASA said in January that the administration of Barack Obama has extended the station's lifespan to 2024.
View gallery

(Front to back) Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, Japan's Koichi Wakata and NASA astronaut Rick …
Use of the space station depends on Russia, which is the only country in charge of transporting astronauts and cosmonauts to and from the station.
The ISS was launched in 1998 as an international effort and has been a symbol of cooperation, particularly between the US and Russia. When the time comes to retire it, the station will be de-orbited and sunk in the ocean.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Wakata thanked the three-man crew staying behind with the ISS and formally handed over the command to US astronaut Steve Swanson as the two floated the microphone to each other in the cramped space surrounded by crewmates.
Swanson's crew now comprises Russia's Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev. They will be joined later this month by American Reid Wiseman, Germany's Alexander Gerst and Russia's Maxim Surayev.
"Folks, my last tweet from space. Stay tuned for post-flight fun," Mastracchio tweeted Tuesday several hours before the hatch on the departing Soyuz was closed.
Research conducted by the crew during the course of their 188-day stint in space included growing vegetables, investigating the design of medical drugs and studying how an astronaut's biological clock is different from that of a human on Earth.

Copyright © 2014 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved.

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Touchdown! Space Station Crew Returns to Earth
By Mike Wall, Senior Writer | May 13, 2014 10:05pm ET
A Soyuz TMA-11M space capsule lands with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan on May 14, 2014.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls View full size image
Three crewmembers of the International Space Station have returned safely to Earth, ending their six-month orbital mission.
A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio, Japanese spaceflyer Koichi Wakata and cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin landed on the steppes of Kazakhstan at 9:58 p.m. EDT Tuesday night (May 13; 7:58 a.m. local time on Wednesday, May 14).
The Soyuz undocked from the space station 3 1/2 hours earlier while the two vehicles were above Mongolia, marking the end of Expedition 39 and the beginning of Expedition 40 aboard the orbiting lab. [Expedition 39 Returns to Earth (Photos)]
Expedition 39 astronauts Koichi Wakata, Mikhail Tyurin and Rick Mastracchio (left to right) rest after landing in a Soyuz capsule on May 13, 2014.
Credit: NASA TV
View full size image
"What an exciting time we shared in this increment," Expedition 39 Commander Wakata said Monday (May 12) as he handed the station's reins over to NASA astronaut Steve Swanson. "Congratulations, and best wishes to the crew of Expedition 40 for a successful mission."
Wakata, Mastracchio and Tyurin enjoyed an eventful and historic stint in orbit after arriving at the space station on Nov. 7, 2013. For example, Wakata became the first Japanese person ever to command the station when he took charge of Expedition 39 on March 10.
Just four days later, Wakata and Mastracchio participated in "Live from Space," a two-hour TV event hosted by Soledad O'Brien that aired on National Geographic Channel, as well as Channel 4 in the United Kingdom. "Live from Space" gave viewers in more than 140 countries an idea of what it's like to live and work on the orbiting lab, with Wakata giving a guided tour of the $100-billion complex.
"It is true that it is unprecedented," former NASA astronaut Ron Garan said of the project at the time. "I've never seen any kind of access like this before. Typically, live events from space run 15 minutes, 20 [minutes] tops. Two hours is just unbelievable."
A Russian Soyuz spacecraft is seen docked to the International Space Station, as photographed by one of the Expedition 39 crew members aboard the orbital outpost.
Credit: NASA
View full size image

Expedition 39 also oversaw the arrival of SpaceX's robotic Dragon capsule, which launched toward the space station April 18 on the California-based company's third contracted cargo mission for NASA. (SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion deal to make 12 such flights for the agency.)
Wakata, Mastracchio and Tyurin zipped around Earth 3,000 times during their 188 days in space, traveling more than 78 million miles (127 million kilometers), NASA officials said.
Expedition 40 will start with a skeleton crew that includes Russian cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Artemyev, in addition to Swanson.
But the space station will soon be up to full strength once again. Three new crewmembers — NASA's Reid Wiseman, cosmonaut Max Suraev and Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency — are slated to blast off from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on May 28.

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