Space Station Trio Lands Safely In Kazakhstan

April 27, 2012

Joshua Buck
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
jbuck@nasa.gov

Kelly Humphries
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
kelly.o.humphries@nasa.gov

RELEASE: 12-140

SPACE STATION TRIO LANDS SAFELY IN KAZAKHSTAN

HOUSTON -- Three members of the Expedition 30 crew undocked from the
International Space Station and safely returned to Earth on Friday,
wrapping up a five-and-a-half-month mission in space.

Commander Dan Burbank of NASA and Russian Flight Engineers Anatoly
Ivanishin and Anton Shkaplerov landed their Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft
in Kazakhstan at 6:45 a.m. CDT after undocking from the space
station's Poisk module at 3:18 a.m. The trio, which arrived at the
station on Nov. 16, 2011, spent a total of 165 days in space, 163 of
them conducting research on the station.

Before leaving the station, Burbank handed over command of Expedition
31 to the Russian Federal Space Agency's Oleg Kononenko, who remains
aboard the station with NASA astronaut Don Pettit and European Space
Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers. They will be joined by NASA astronaut
Joseph Acaba and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Sergei Revin.
Acaba, Padalka and Revin are scheduled to launch May 14 from the
Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and dock with the station on May
16.

To follow Twitter updates from NASA's Expedition 30 and 31 astronauts,
visit:

http://twitter.com/AstroCoastie


https://twitter.com/astro_Pettit


https://twitter.com/AstroAcaba


For more information about Expedition 31 and the space station, visit:


http://www.nasa.gov/station


-end-



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