Korolyov (Moscow): A Soyuz landing module carrying Gennady Padalka (Russia), Michael Barratt (NASA) and Canadian space tourist Guy Laliberte have touched down Kazakh steppe.
The International Space Station (ISS) 20th crew touched down the Kazakh steppe at 8:32 am (local time) yesterday.
Padalka and Barratt spent 198 days in orbit and the space tourist had a brief mission on October 2-11.
The crew had a busy schedule: the astronauts received two space shuttles, two Progress spaceships and HTV, the first space freighter built by Japan.
There were two spacewalks, which tested Orlan-MK spacesuits and prepared the ISS for docking with Russia's MIM 2 research module due in November.
Padalka redocked the Soyuz TMA-14 from Zvezda to Pirs so that Zvezda could receive the Progress M-67 freighter.
Another goal of the redocking was a more convenient ISS configuration for orbit corrections.
Padalka and Barratt held plenty of experiments, including 42 planned by Russia, and did a number of commercial jobs.
Samples, experiment files and substrates cultivated in space were brought back to the Earth, while Laliberte delivered photographs and video recordings done onboard the ISS.
Bureau Report
First Published: Monday, October 12, 2009, 13:26