Space Station crew returns to Earth and lands safely in Kazakhstan



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Three members of the Expedition 56 crew returned to the Earth on Thursday from the International Space Station, where they spent months providing practical support for low-Earth-orbit scientific research, ensuring that the laboratory in question Earth orbit is fully operational and to conduct three sorties in space.

NASA astronauts Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold, as well as cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, landed at 19:44 EDT (17:44 in Kazakhstan) southeast of the remote town of Dzhezkazgan in Kazakhstan.

The crew performed hundreds of experiments during its 197 days of expedition into space. Highlights included a study on ultra-cold quantum gas using the first European commercial facility for microgravity research, as well as a system using surface forces to achieve liquid-liquid separation.

The crew also welcomed five cargo spacecraft, which delivered several tons of supplies and research experiences. The 14th SpaceX Dragon flight was the first to arrive at the station in April, shortly after the arrival of the three crew members, bringing supplies and equipment. It was followed by the 15th Dragon, which arrived in July with additional supplies.

The ninth Northrop Grumman Cygnus replenishment spacecraft arrived in May before the end of Expedition 55. In August, a Russian Progress completed a fast-track rendezvous in less than four hours. And in September, the seventh Japanese cargo ship Konotouri arrived just a week before the Expedition 56 trio's departure to return home.

Feustel and Arnold have both participated in dozens of events related to the educational downlink in space as part of the NASA Year of Education, touching on more than 200,000 students in 29 states. Feustel has now logged more than 226 space days in three spaceflights and Arnold has spent more than 209 days on two missions.

The duo ventured outside the space station on three spacewalks to perform maintenance and upgrade operations during Expeditions 55 and 56, including replacing and upgrading external cameras, including those that would facilitate the approach and docking of the commercial crews of Boeing Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon when they start launching soon American soil.

The space walkers also replaced components of the space station's cooling system and communications network and installed new wireless communication antennas for external experiments. Feustel has accumulated 61 hours and 48 minutes of walking on nine career space outings and ranks third overall among US astronauts. Arnold has 32 hours and 4 minutes during five spacewalks.

Artemyev made an outing in space, along with his fellow cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev, to manually launch four small technological satellites and install an experiment called Icarus on the Russian segment of the space station. The release in space lasted 7 hours and 46 minutes, the longest in the history of the Russian space program. Artemyev has now spent 366 days in space on both flights.

The 57 expedition continues its research and operations with a team consisting of Serena Aunon, Chancellor of NASA, Alexander Gerst of ESA (European Space Agency) and Sergey Prokopyev of Roscosmos. Gerst assumed command of the station while Feustel was preparing to leave.

NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin are due to be launched on Thursday 11 October for an arrival the same day, thus becoming part of the crew of Expedition 57.

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