William Atkins
Friday, 24 October 2008 19:53
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 2
NASA announced that the International Space Station Expedition 17 crew was returned safely home to Earth on Thursday, October 23, 2008. Anxiety was a bit high after the last two Soyuz spacecraft descended with dangerous ballistic trajectories.
After undocking from the International Space Station (ISS) at 7:16 p.m. Central Daylight Time (CDT) and performing their deorbit burn at 9:45 p.m., the ISS
Expedition 17 crew landed their
Soyuz TMA-12 spacecraft on target in the steppes of Kazakhstan at 10:37 p.m. CDT (0336 GMT on October 24).
The three members landing back on Earth were Russian cosmonauts Sergei Volkov and Oleg Kononeko, and U.S. spaceflight participant Richard Garriott.
Volkov and Kononeko spent 199 days in orbit and 197 days at the space station, while Garriott spent ten days at the station.
A bit of apprehension was apparent during the landing sequence of the Soyuz spacecraft because the last two vehicles returned to Earth (April 2007 and October 2007) in a ballistic mode.
This action places much more gravitational force (G-force) on the astronauts.
These two abnormal descents of the Russian vehicles occurred after a separation failure caused the Soyuz vehicle to switch to the backup ballistic mode.
Page two continues the story.
