ARKALYK, Kazakhstan – A Soyuz capsule carrying a U.S.-Russian crew back to Earth following six months at the international space station landed safely and on target in Kazakhstan early today.
The bell-shaped Soyuz TMA-4, carrying Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka and American partner Mike Fincke, touched down beneath a parachute at the targeted landing site, some 55 miles north of the town of Arkalyk, in predawn darkness.
Russian and U.S. officials had waited alongside search helicopter crews for the first glimpse of the Russian Soyuz. It had undocked from the space station some three hours earlier and made two orbits around Earth. Other Russian rescue teams had been in position, ready to move in by air and off-road convoys if necessary.
At Mission Control outside Moscow, where Russian and American space officials – including NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe – gathered, applause broke out at news of the landing. The Soyuz crew had been in contact with helicopter crews as they made their final approach and reported that all were feeling well, Mission Control said.
After landing, the crew is usually given a quick medical checkup before beginning the journey back to Moscow’s Star City, the home base of Russia’s space program.
Russia’s nonreusable Soyuz has become the linchpin of the global community’s manned space program, filling in for the U.S. shuttle fleet, grounded since Columbia burned up on re-entry in February 2003.
The Soyuz, the workhorse of Russia’s cash-strapped space program, boasts a stellar safety record.
NASA has said that its shuttles should be flying again by early summer. Boeing is a prime contractor for the shuttle program.
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