Space Station Trio Lands Safely in Kazakhstan

[NASA News <hqnews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nov. 21, 2011

Michael Curie 
Headquarters, Washington 
202-358-1100 
michael.curie@xxxxxxxx 

Kelly Humphries 
Johnson Space Center, Houston 
281-483-5111 
kelly.o.humphries@xxxxxxxx 
RELEASE: 11-394

SPACE STATION TRIO LANDS SAFELY IN KAZAKHSTAN

HOUSTON -- Three International Space Station crew members safely 
returned to Earth on Monday, wrapping up nearly six months in space 
during which NASA and its international partners celebrated the 11th 
anniversary of continuous residence and work aboard the station. 

Expedition 29 Commander Mike Fossum, Flight Engineers Satoshi Furukawa 
of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Sergei Volkov of the 
Russian Federal Space Agency landed their Soyuz spacecraft in frigid 
conditions on the central steppe of Kazakhstan at 8:26 p.m. CST Nov. 
21 (8:26 a.m. Kazakhstan time, Nov. 22). The trio arrived at the 
station on June 9. They spent 167 days in space and 165 days on the 
complex. Volkov, a two-time station crew member, now has accumulated 
366 days in space.

Before leaving the station, Fossum handed over command to NASA's Dan 
Burbank, who leads Expedition 30. Burbank and Flight Engineers 
Anatoly Ivanishin and Anton Shkaplerov of Russia will continue 
research and maintenance aboard the station. 

The remaining Expedition 30 crew members, NASA astronaut Don Pettit, 
European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers, and cosmonaut Oleg 
Kononenko, are scheduled to launch Dec. 21 from the Baikonur 
Cosmodrome and dock with the station on Dec. 23.

To follow Twitter updates from Burbank, visit: 

http://twitter.com/AstroCoastie

To view social media updates from Fossum's mission, visit:

http://twitter.com/astro_aggie

and

http://go.nasa.gov/oZgHtl 

For more information about Expedition 29 and the space station, visit: 


http://www.nasa.gov/station

	
-end-



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