After living on the International Space Station (ISS) for six months, three astronauts safely returned to Earth Sunday, July 1, aboard the Russian-built Soyuz space capsule. The spacecraft landed on Central Asian steppes of Kazakhstan at 4:14 a.m. EDT, safely delivering NASA astronaut Don Pettit, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, and Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers.
"Everything is great, we feel great," Kononenko radioed Russia's Mission Control Center before landing. The astronauts had undocked from the space station several hours earlier in the Soyuz spacecraft to start their journey back home. The trio had reached the orbiting outpost in December 2011.
Pettit described his final day in space in a blog post, reflecting on the impact of his mission and encouraging humanity to keep pushing the limits of space exploration. "On Earth, the frontiers opened slowly," he wrote in the blog post. "The technology of sailing was known and advanced for over a thousand years before the Earth was circumnavigated. Such bold acts require the technology, the will, and the audacity to explore. Sometimes you have one, but not the others. I only hope that my small efforts here, perhaps adding one grain of sand to the beach of knowledge, will help enable a generation of people in the future to call space 'home.'"
Throughout the months-long mission, Pettit and Kuipers took to Twitter and photo sharing site Flickr to share stunning photos of the Earth as seen from space. Pettit also updated a blog describing his experiences on the space station, and posted several poems in tribute to life in space. Moreover, the NASA astronaut also kept a journal as a funny way to keep track of his scientific activities while on the orbiting outpost. When he experienced with growing various kinds of plants in microgravity, for instance, Pettit wrote blog posts in the voice of a zucchini plant. Pettit's last poem on Friday, June 29, entitled "Last Day in Space," described memories of the mission, notable experiences, and the astronaut's anticipation over seeing his wife and children again.
The trio of veteran astronauts, Pettit, Kononenko, and Kuipers, made up half of the station's Expedition 31 crew. Three other ISS crew members, Russia's Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin and NASA's Joe Acaba will remain in orbit. While at the orbiting laboratory, the astronauts also welcomed the first commercial aircraft to visit the station. The crew released Space X's unmanned Dragon cargo at the end of May, which arrived as part of a test flight to demonstrate the spacecraft's ability to carry cargo to and from low-Earth orbit. The unmanned Dragon capsule was also the first privately owned spaceship to reach the $100 billion orbital post. As Dragon approached the orbit, Pettit and Kuipers used the outpost's robotic arm to pluck the capsule from space and manually park it to the complex.
The successful landing on Sunday ranked Pettit as the fourth most experienced American astronaut. The NASA astronaut now has a total of 370 days in space during three missions, two of them as part of a space station crew. Kononenko now has a total of 392 days during two separate long stints aboard the station, while Kuipers ended the mission with 204 days of spaceflight time during his career.
Kononenko served as commander of Expedition 31, and on Saturday, June 30, he passed the torch to Padalka. After the successful landing on Sunday, Russian space station controllers radioed Pedalka and the other two Expedition 31 crew members to let them know their colleagues arrived home safely and in good health. "Good to hear," Pedalka radioed back. "Another mission completed."
