Soyuz Returns to Earth with Three Cosmonauts

Soyuz Returns to Earth with Three Cosmonauts

Soyuz has finally returned to earth safely with three astronauts aboard it. The Russian space capsule carrying a U.S.-Russian-Italian crew landed safely on the steppes of northern Kazakhstan early morning today. It was on a mission to the International Space Station where it took the new residents of the space station.

The TMA-5 capsule carrying the crew of the spacecraft was located by the Search-and-rescue helicopters while floating on the designated spot around 80 kilometers north of the Kazakh town of Arkalyk. It had earlier undocked from the station around 3.5 hours earlier. It carried back home the crew consisting of Russian Salizhan Sharipov, American Leroy Chiao and Italian Roberto Vittori.

Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev and American astronaut John Phillips now occupy International Space Station. They would be residing on the station for a period of around 6 months and would be welcoming the first Space Shuttle mission ever since the Columbia incident. Shuttle is expected to resume its missions to space sometime in the last week of May.

Russia plans to continue to use their Soyuz vehicle even after the Shuttle is commission back to use it as escape vehicles.