Hadfield, Marshburn and Romenko Return Safely to Earth

By Nancy Atkinson - May 14, 2013 at 3:12 AM UTC | Missions
hadfield-home.jpg

Coming home to clear blue skies, green grass and warm weather, the Expedition 35 crew of Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, NASA's Tom Marshburn and Russia's Roman Romanenko has returned after spending just over five months on the International Space Station. "It's beautiful!" one of the crew radioed in Russian just before landing. "It's morning here."

The Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft landed right on target on the steppe of Kazakhstan, southeast of Dzhezkazgan at 10:31 pm EDT on May 13 (02:31 UTC and 8:31 am local time, May 14, 2013.) The crew undocked from the ISS on Monday.

Keeping with his Expedition-long constant updates via

Twitter

(updated by his son Evan during the return flight and landing) Hadfield's location changed appropriately to "In a Soyuz" to "In a field in Kazahkstan."

A few hours later, Hadfield tweeted, "Safely home - back on Earth, happily readapting to the heavy pull of gravity. Wonderful to smell and feel Spring."

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Expedition 35 Commander Chris Hadfield of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), left, Russian Flight Engineer Roman Romanenko of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), center, and NASA Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn sit in chairs outside the Soyuz Capsule just minutes after they landed in a remote area outside the town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on Tuesday, May 14, 2013. Hadfield, Romanenko and Marshburn are returning from five months onboard the International Space Station where they served as members of the Expedition 34 and 35 crews. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)[/caption]

The crew smiled and gave thumbs up after being extracted from the Soyuz craft, which appeared to land upright and then tipped on its side. Hadfield and Marshburn will soon head back to Johnson Space Center in Houston, with Romanenko going to Star City, Russia.

The Expedition 35 crew has now wrapped up 146 days in space, 144 days on the ISS. While on board they completed 2,336 orbits around the planet and clocked almost 100 million kilometers (62 million miles) In total, Marshburn has spent 162 days in space, 166 days for Hadfield, and 334 days for Romanenko.

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The Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft is seen as it lands with the Expedition 35 crew. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)[/caption]

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The Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft is seen as it lands. Photo Credit: (NASA/Carla Cioffi)[/caption]

This video shows the crews saying goodbye; then later the undocking, followed by the landing and crew extraction:

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com