Last “Union” of the old series bringing the ISS crew to Earth – BBC News

Almost six months in weightlessness and again under the earth underfoot. In the Kazakh steppe early this morning landed spacecraft capsule “Soyuz”. With the return of the ISS Russian cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka and NASA astronaut Jeffrey Williams. Everything was in normal mode, and after about two hours, the Russians are waiting on the airfield near Moscow Chkalovsky

For Professionals Mission Control Center (MCC) -. Sleepless night for the crew “TMA-20M Soyuz” – the longest day of the ones that had to take place in the cosmos. Almost five hours without any movement on board the lander – all this time a group of operative management for a moment to come down from the workplace

Every minute on the way from the ISS to the Earth’s surface -. Now, not only in the secret archives, but and in the history of the entire space industry of the country. For manned spacecraft series “TMA-M Union,” it was the last flight – are replaced by machines “MS Union”, and passed it exactly according to plan

173 days, they could see their home planet just from the window of the International. space station. Cosmonauts Alexei Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka with astronaut Jeffrey Williams – all successfully landed in the Kazakhstan steppes. Astronauts House tradition was waiting for a table.

“Extreme”, as they say on the ISS, 10 kilometers lander moved with landing parachute. From the air, it covered the Air Combat Defense Ministry, with the ground – almost two hundred military personnel.

“Everything went smoothly, with no deviations,” – said the head of Flight Space Center RSC “Energia” Alexander Kaleri.

Service station, meeting space truck – in between the humdrum tasks of the crew had time to look for answers to the questions of concern to humanity. What is the effect of weightlessness on the body and whether it is possible from this benefit. The results of international studies promise to surprise the public

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