The Soyuz TMA-20 spacecraft carrying Expedition 27 crew members Dmitry Kondratyev, Cady Coleman and Paolo Nespoli landed safely at 10:27 p.m. EDT on the steppe of Kazakhstan.
Russian recovery teams are on hand to help the crew exit the Soyuz vehicle and adjust to gravity after their five-month stay in space. Kondratyev will return to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, outside of Moscow, while NASA’s Coleman and Nespoli of the European Space Agency will fly directly to Houston.
Kondratyev, Coleman and Nespoli spent 157 days aboard the space station and a total of 159 days in space. During their mission, the Expedition 26 and 27 crew members worked on more than 150 microgravity experiments in human research; biology and biotechnology; physical and materials sciences; technology development; and Earth and space sciences.
A quick succession of international space vehicles arrived on the station’s loading docks during the five months the trio spent in orbit. The Japanese Kounotori2, or "white stork," H-II Transfer Vehicle 2; two Russian Progress cargo ships; the European Johannes Kepler Automated Transfer Vehicle-2; and, on their final flights, space shuttles Discovery and Endeavour delivered more than 15 tons of supplies necessary for working and living aboard the station, as well as the new cosmic ray detector, the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.
A veteran of three spaceflights, Coleman has logged 179 days in space. During two flights, Nespoli has spent 174 days in space. It was the first mission for Kondratyev.
Expedition 28 Commander Russian Cosmonaut Andrey Borisenko and Flight Engineers Ron Garan of NASA and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Samokutyaev remain aboard the station.
Three new Expedition 28 crew members, Soyuz Commander Sergei Volkov, NASA Flight Engineer Mike Fossum and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Flight Engineer Satoshi Furukawa, will launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in their Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft at 3:15 p.m. June 7 (2:15 a.m. Baikonur time June 8) and will dock to the complex two days later.