A Soyuz capsule carrying two Russians and an American woman from the International Space Station (ISS) landed in Kazakhstan on Monday, ending a record stay for the Russian pair.
Photo: SITA/AP, Roscosmos
Russians Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub have been on the ISS since last September, their mission lasted a record 374 days.
The capsule landed on the Kazakh steppe about three and a half hours after detaching from the ISS in an apparently uneventful descent. In the final stage of the landing, the capsule descended under a red-and-white parachute at about 7.2 meters per second, firing small rockets in the final seconds to cushion the landing.
The astronauts were to be taken out of the capsule and placed in nearby chairs to adjust to gravity before undergoing medical examinations in a nearby tent.
Russians Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub returned after 374 days aboard the space station. On Friday, they broke the record for the longest continuous stay there. American Tracy Dyson, who was on the space station for six months, was also in the capsule. Eight astronauts remain on the ISS.
Source: vat.pravda.sk
