Article Posted on : - May 24, 2011

Russian Soyuz-TMA spacecraft

MOSCOW (BNS): The Soyuz-TMA spacecraft with three crew members onboard undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) and landed safely in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, a news report said.

The outgoing ISS expedition team - Kondratiev, NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman and European astronaut Paolo Nespoli - ended their five-and-a-half-month stay in space and landed in Kazakhstan at 6:04 Moscow time (2:04 GMT) Tuesday, Ria Novosti said.

According to the report, three planes, fourteen Mi-8 helicopters and seven rescue vehicles took part in the search for the reentry capsule. The crew is in good health after the landing, an officer with the search and rescue team said.

Russian space agency Roscosmos said the remaining three members of Expedition 27 - cosmonauts Andrei Borisenko and Aleksandr Samokutyayev and US astronaut Ronald Garan - will continue their work on the orbit and will be transferred to the Expedition 28.

In June, three other Expedition 28 members - Russia's Sergey Volkov, Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa and US astronaut Michael Fossum - will join the ISS crew.

Russian Soyuz and Progress spacecraft will take the bulk of crew rotation and cargo missions to the ISS after NASA stops launching its shuttles.