Soyuz Tma 22 Lands From Orbiting Station
The Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft carrying Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank and Flight Engineers Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin landed in Kazakhstan Friday at 1:45 a.m. EDT after undocking from the International Space Station officially ending their stay.
The Soyuz performed a deorbit burn before the descent module separated from the rest of the Russian spacecraft and entered the Earth's atmosphere. Afterward, the Soyuz deployed several parachutes, slowing its descent, and then fired three small engines to soften its landing. Support personnel extracted the Expedition 30 crew members from the Soyuz and they are now being monitored by flight surgeons.
Expedition 30 Commander Dan Burbank of NASA, Russian Soyuz Commander Anton Shkaplerov and Flight Engineer Anatoly Ivanishin were greeted in a traditional ceremony at the airport in Kustanai, Kazakhstan on April 27, 2012, hours after landing in their Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft on the steppe of Kazakhstan. After the ceremony, the crew split up, with Shkaplerov and Ivanishin returning to their training base in Star City, Russia, while Burbank boarded a NASA plane in Kustanai to return to the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Credit: aquarius-project.blogspot.com