The crew of three -Russian Flight engineers: Aleksey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka, along with Jeffrey Williams Station commander with US agency – on Tuesday left the International Space Station (ISS) as the Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft undocked from the ISS at 21:51 GMT, said NASA mission commentator Rob Navias.
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Three Expedition 48 astronauts safely returned to the Earth on Wednesday after completing a 172-day mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
The spacecraft with Russian cosmonauts, commander Alexei Ovchinin and flight engineer Oleg Skripochka, along with NASA’s astronaut, flight engineer Jeff Williams are returning to Earth.
Williams was instrumental in preparing the station for the future arrival of USA commercial crew spacecraft. Russian recovery teams are helping the crew exit the Soyuz spacecraft and adjust to gravity after their stay in space.
Williams, 58, returned to Earth with a career total of 534 days in orbit, more time than any other astronaut in USA history and 14th in the world, reports RT.
Williams was instrumental in preparing the station for the future arrival of USA commercial crew spacecraft. Its first users are expected to be Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, now in development in partnership with NASA.
According to NASA, the crew of Expedition 48 contributed to hundreds of experiments during their time aboard the low orbit space station.
With the completion of his fourth mission in space, Williams has now clocked a total of 534 days in space. Two Russian ISS Progress cargo craft also docked to the station in April and July delivering tons of supplies.
Expedition 49 continues operating the station with Anatoly Ivanishin of Roscosmos in command.
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Left behind on the station are Roscosmos cosmonaut Ivanishin, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Takuya Onishi. It will take Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrei Borisenko, and USA astronaut Robert S. Kimbraugh to space.
