On board the spacecraft is U.S. astronaut Tim Kopra of NASA, British astronaut Tim Peake of the European Space Agency and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko.
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After six months in space which saw him take part in more than 250 experiments, run the London Marathon on a treadmill and receive a birthday honour from the Queen, astronaut Tim Peake is now heading back to earth.
Chichester astronaut Tim Peake has started on his return trip to Earth this morning (Saturday June 18). The experiment aimed to test how astronauts who will one day orbit Mars will manage a complex network and communications delays to guide rovers on the surface of the Red Planet in precarious maneuvers.
He said: “It’s been a fantastic six months up here – really remarkable, incredible experience”.
“I’m looking forward to coming home, looking forward to seeing my friends and my family, but I am going to miss this place (the ISS)”.
He is due to touch down on the Kazakhstan steppe at 10.15am BST.
If the “deorbit burn” is too short the astronauts could skip across the atmosphere like a stone skimming a lake and fly out into space.
Fifteen minutes before landing, four parachutes will be deployed in succession.
Chichester-based Peake, 44, became the first Briton to join the crew of the International Space Station as a European Space Agency astronaut on December 15 previous year.
He is the first UK-born person to go into space without doing so via a private contract (as Helen Sharman did) or having foreign citizenship (like Piers Sellers, Michael Foale, Gregory Johnson, Nicholas Patrick, Mark Shuttleworth and Richard Garriott).
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The first step on the return journey will come shortly before 7am with the command from ground control to release the sprung hooks attaching the Soyuz to the space station.
