Space capsule with 3 astronauts returns to Earth
MOSCOW — Three astronauts returned to Earth on Thursday after nearly six months aboard the International Space Station, landing on the snow-covered steppes outside of a remote town in Kazakhstan.
A Russian Soyuz capsule with NASA’s Randy Bresnik, Russia’s Sergey Ryazanskiy and Paolo Nespoli of the European Space Agency descended under a red-and-white parachute and landed on schedule at 2:37 p.m. local time (0837 GMT; 3:37 a.m. EST).
The three were pulled out of the capsule within 20 minutes and appeared to be in good condition.
Bresnik, Ryazansky and Nespoli spent 139 days aboard the orbiting space laboratory. The trio who arrived at the station in July contributed to hundreds of scientific experiments and performed several spacewalks.