Veteran cosmonaut departs from International Space Station
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Version 0 of 1. A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying the world’s most experienced space flier and two rookie crewmates has pulled away from the International Space Station, aiming for a parachute landing in Kazakhstan, a Nasa TV broadcast has showed. The capsule departed the station at 9.39pm GMT (5.39pm EDT) on Friday and was expected to touch down at 12.51am GMT south-east of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan early on Saturday. Related: Six amazing sights that look even better from the ISS Strapped inside the capsule was former station commander Gennady Padalka, 57, who returns from his fifth spaceflight after a record 879 days in orbit. The previous record was set by six-time flier Sergei Krikalev, who has a career total 803 days in space. Joining Padalka for the ride back to Earth were Kazakh cosmonaut Aidyn Aimbetov and Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen, both of whom spent less than 10 days in orbit. “There definitely hasn’t been time to get homesick,” Mogensen, the first Dane in space, told reporters during an inflight press conference on Tuesday. “Time has really, really flown past.” Mogensen and Aimbetov launched with Padalka’s replacement, veteran cosmonaut Sergey Volkov, aboard another Soyuz capsule on 2 September. That flight originally included British soprano and aspiring space tourist Sarah Brightman. Citing family reasons, Brightman stopped training in May and relinquished her seat to Aimbetov. Volkov remains on board, along with five crewmates, including newly named commander Mark Kelly of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko. Kelly and Kornienko this week passed the halfway point of a planned year-long stay in space, the longest tour of duty in the station’s 15-year history. “I expected this to not be easy. A year is a long time,” said Kelly. “You have to pace yourself.” Nasa and Russia are using the year-long mission to get better insight into how microgravity affects human physical and mental health and what countermeasures may mitigate any harmful effects. In a decade, Nasa intends to begin flying astronauts further beyond the space station, a $100bn research laboratory that orbits about 250 miles (400 km) above Earth. The long-term US goal is a human expedition to Mars in the 2030s. |