Snowy landing for first Soyuz return since shuttle

Chelsea Whyte, contributor

(Image: NASA/Bill Ingalls)

As the sun rose over the snowy fields outside Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, it greeted three returnees from the black of space.

Surrounded by steam, the Soyuz capsule looks otherworldly as it rests on the tundra. After the landing at 8:26 am local time on November 22, workers helped the crew out of the cramped-looking capsule.

Its passengers were NASA astronaut Mike Fossum, Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergei Volkov, and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa, who spent five months aboard the International Space Station serving as crew for ISS Expeditions 28 and 29.

The Soyuz is the first spacecraft to return astronauts to Earth since the space shuttle was retired in July. These astronauts leave the ISS in the hands of a crew that arrived just one week ago, amid fears that the space station would be left unmanned due to safety concerns after the failed launch of a Soyuz rocket in August.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/1a4ea4b7/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A110C110Csoyuz0Ecapsule0Egets0Esteamy0Eretu0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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