Expedition 49 crew members to return to Earth from space station!

Photo Credit: NASA

New Delhi: The crew members of Expedition 49 on the International Space Station (ISS) will return to Earth after completing 115 days in space since their launch in July this year. The three astronauts will depart from the orbital outpost Saturday, October 29.

According to NASA, Expedition 49 Commander Anatoly Ivanishin of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Flight Engineers Kate Rubins of NASA and Takuya Onishi of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, will undock their Soyuz spacecraft from the space station at 8:37 p.m. EDT on Saturday and land in Kazakhstan at 11:59 p.m. (9:59 a.m. October 30, Kazakhstan time).

The three astronauts have done hundreds of experiments together in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science aboard the space station.

NASA Television will air coverage the departure and landing activities of the three astronauts.

At the time of undocking, Expedition 50 will begin aboard the space station under the command of NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough with his crewmates Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko of Roscosmos. These three astronauts will operate the space station for three weeks until the arrival of three new crew members.

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson , Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency) and Oleg Novitsky of Roscosmos are scheduled to launch in November from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.