| Fincke, Lonchakov, Simonyi land in Kazakhstan |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Thursday, 09 April 2009 | |
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According to NASA, they undocked form the Space Station at 10:55 p.m. Central Daylight Time (CDT) on Tuesday, April 7, 2009, did a de-orbit burn at 1:24 a.m. CDT on Wednesday, April 8th to leave orbit and descend back to Earth, and then landed at 2:16 a.m. CDT. U.S. astronaut Mike Fincke commanded the Expedition 18 crew and Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov was one of its flight engineers. Charles Simonyi, a rich software developer, was a spaceflight participant. Fincke is reported by NASA to have spent a full year in space, adding 178 days to his time in space with this mission. He is also the first American to fly back and forth to the ISS in a Russian Soyuz space capsule. He also served as a flight engineer onboard the Expedition 9 mission from April 18 to October 23, 2004. Lonchakov has spent over 200 days in space. Along with his time for Expedition 18, he also flew onboard the space shuttle Endeavour in 2001 and onboard a Soyuz spaceship in 2002. Simonyi has gone into space twice, the only spaceflight participant to do so. He is flying under a contract made by the Russian Federal Space Agency (RSA). According to the NASA media release, Space Station Crew Lands In Soyuz After Successful Mission, "The Expedition 18 crew worked with a variety of experiments, including human life sciences, physical sciences and Earth observation.” The quotes from the NASA article continues on page two, as does more information on the Expedition 20 crew, which expands to six crewmembers. |
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