December 1, 2009
(Belgium/Canada)- A Russian Soyuz space capsule carrying three astronauts from the International Space Station landed safely in Kazakhstan today. The capsule - carrying Belgian Frank de Winne, Canadian Robert Thirsk and Russian Roman Romanenko - landed as planned in the vast steppe of northern Kazakhstan about 85 km (50 miles) north of the town of Arkalyk. "The Soyuz commander has just reported that the crew is in good shape," said an official at Mission Control in Korolyov outside Moscow. The capsule landed at 10:17 a.m. Moscow time, according to officials at Mission Control. A two-man crew remains orbiting the Earth on the space station. They will be joined by another three-man crew from Russia, the United States and Japan that is due to launch to the station onboard a Soyuz spacecraft on December 21.XXX
XXXExpedition 21 commander De Winne, a European Space Agency astronaut, was relieved by NASA astronaut Jeffrey Williams, who arrived at the station in October. De Winne, 48, became on October 9 the first space station commander of the European Space Agency (ESA) when he relieved cosmonaut Gennady Padalka. De Winne, cosmonaut Roman Romanenko and Canadian astronaut Roberet Thirsk, who launched to the station May 27, wrapped up a 188-day stay in space.
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XXX"It has been an honor, a pleasure and a privilege to be able to work with this wonderful crew in Expedition 21," De Winne said. "But it's also been an honor and a pleasure to work with all the ground teams in the different control centers. The support that I've received both from my crew and from the control centers has been tremendous and magnificent. "As the first European commander, it has been a great honor to be able to fulfill this role and I've only done this thanks to the help of all my colleagues as well at the European astronaut center and all the other European astronauts who have flown before me and have also shown excellence in their jobs." Said Williams: "Frank, I'd also like to congratulate you on being the first commander of the space station that wasn't a Russian cosmonaut or a NASA astronaut. You've done a very good job, you have set the bar very high for me and also for all of those who follow us. So I want to congratulate you on that great achievement. You were the right person to transition us fully into six-crew (member) operations. So thank you for that and congratulations again."
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XXXWilliams also praised De Winne's original two crewmates, Romanenko and Thirsk, as well as Stott, taking a moment to pin astronaut wings on her shirt as her first space mission draws to a close. A few moments later, he officially assumed command. With the Monday departure of De Winne, Romanenko and Thirsk, Williams and cosmonaut Maxim Suraev will have the station to themselves until the arrival of another Soyuz Dec. 23 carrying cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, NASA flight engineer Timothy Creamer and Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi.
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XXXThe next shuttle visit is scheduled for launch around Feb. 6, a flight that will deliver one of the final U.S. pressurized modules to the lab complex. The station currently is about 86 percent complete, weighing some 760,000 pounds. "The space station now is nearly complete," Thirsk said during a joint crew news conference earlier Tuesday. "If you think you've seen some pretty interesting expeditions aboard the space station, you ain't seen nothing yet. We're entering the golden era of the International Space Station program and science and technology demonstrations are going to take off from here." (from abcnews.go.com and spaceflightnow.com) XXX
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