Союз МС-04 (№734) – Союз-ФГ – Байконур 1/5 – 20.04.2017

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https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/09/02/nasas-most-experienced-astronaut-set-for-return-to-earth/

NASA's most experienced astronaut set for return to Earth
September 2, 2017 William Harwood

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION

Peggy Whitson, America's most experienced astronaut with nearly two years in orbit over three missions, returns to Earth Saturday after an extended 288-day stay aboard the International Space Station, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan with Soyuz MS-04 commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and NASA flight engineer Jack Fischer.

Спойлер

Astronaut Peggy Whitson on-board the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

Bidding station commander Randy Bresnik, Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli and cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy farewell, Whitson and her two crewmates plan to undock fr om the Russian Poisk module at 5:58 p.m. EDT (GMT-4) Saturday.

After moving a safe distance away, Yurchikhin and Fischer will monitor a planned four-minute 38-second rocket firing to slow the craft by about 286 mph, just enough to drop the far side of the orbit deep into the atmosphere for a dawn landing near the town of Dzezkazgan, Kazakhstan, a few seconds shy of 9:22 p.m. (7:22 a.m. Sunday local time).

Russian recovery crews and NASA flight surgeons and support personnel will be standing by to help the returning crew members out of the cramped Soyuz descent module, carrying them to nearby recliners for initial medical checks and satellite phone calls to family and friends as they begin re-adjusting to the unfamiliar tug of gravity.

From the landing site, all three crew members will be flown by helicopter to Karaganda wh ere Yurchikhin will board a Russian space agency plane for the trip home to Star City near Moscow. Because of disruptions caused by Hurricane Harvey, NASA's plans for returning Whitson and Fischer to the Johnson Space Center in Houston were not immediately known.

Yurchikhin and Fischer were launched April 20 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and will be wrapping up a 136-day stay in space. Soyuz spacecraft normally carry a crew of three, but the Russians recently decided to save money by reducing the station's cosmonaut crew from three to two, leaving an empty seat aboard the Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft.

Whitson was launched last Nov. 17 and originally planned to come home with her Soyuz MS-03 crewmates on June 2. But with an empty seat aboard the MS-04 spacecraft, U.S. and Russian space managers agreed to extend Whitson's mission by three months, allowing the U.S. crew to conduct additional research.

And so, being in the right place at the right time, Whitson became America's most experienced astronaut, passing previous record holder Jeff Williams' mark of 534 days aloft over five missions on April 24.

With landing Saturday, Whitson's total time aloft over three missions will stand at 665 days, moving her up to eighth in the world with 131 more days in space than Williams and 145 days more than Scott Kelly, who logged nearly a year in space on one flight.

Yurchikhin's total will stand at 673 days in space over five flights, moving him to seventh in the world, just ahead of Whitson.

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File photo of a Soyuz spacecraft docked at the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

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"I think the legacy (of the space station) is going to be the international partnership," Whitson said. "We have built something in low-Earth orbit, traveling at 17,500 mph, it was not technically an easy thing to do, but we did it internationally, pieces of hardware from all over the world were constructed in low-Earth orbit and to me, it's actually miraculous we didn't have a lot more problems than we did in that whole process."

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ISS Updates‏ @ISS101 2 мин. назад

Fifth-time space flier Fyodor Yurchikhin & NASA's @Astro2fish are returning after 136 days, @AstroPeggy closes out a 289-day flight.

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Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 1 мин. назад

Rob Navias is forever a wordsmith. Introduces MCC-H by noting the "Meteorological body blow" that hit Houston.

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Ключ от МКС
 

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Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 1 мин. назад

ISS has a key. Randy now holds the key as the new commander.

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ISS Updates‏ @ISS101 3 мин. назад

#Soyuz Return: Hatch Closure - 18:40 UTC, Undocking - 21:58, D/O Burn - 0:28:54, Re-Entry - 0:59 & Landing - 1:22 http://bit.ly/2gxky4R

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