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Welcome back home to the Expedition 30 crew of the International Space Station! The Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft carrying Commander Dan Burbank and Flight Engineers Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin landed in Kazakhstan on Friday, April 27 at 11:45 UTC (7:45 a.m. EDT). They undocked earlier from the International Space Station at 8:18 UTC (4:18 a.m. EDT). Take a look at the video of how painstaking it is to extract the crew from the Soyuz capsule!
Expedition 31 began when Burbank, Shkaplerov and Ivanishin undocked from the station. On board the ISS now is Commander Oleg Kononenko and Flight Engineers Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers. They will continue their stay until July 1, and they will be joined in in mid-May by Flight Engineers Gennady Padalka, Joe Acaba and Sergei Revin. Right now, their launch is scheduled for May 15 and their stay in space would last until September 17.
About Nancy Atkinson
Nancy Atkinson is Universe Today's Senior Editor. She also is the host of the NASA Lunar Science Institute podcast and works with the Astronomy Cast and 365 Days of Astronomy podcasts. Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador.
