Three Russian cosmonauts returned safely from a mission to the International Space Station on Thursday.
The Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft carrying Oleg Artemyev, Denis Matveyev, and Sergey Korsakov quietly landed at 4:57 pm at a designated location in the Kazakh steppes, about 90 miles southeast of the city of Zhezkazgan.
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The trio arrived at the station in March. For Artemyev, the mission was his third space flight, bringing his total time spent in orbit to 561 days. Matveev and Korsakov each scored his 195th on the first mission.
As the Soyuz capsule descended under clear skies in a large red-and-white-striped parachute, Artemyev reported to mission control that the entire crew was in good health.
A helicopter support team landed a few minutes later to retrieve the crew. After a brief post-flight medical examination, the cosmonauts will be airlifted to the StarCity Cosmonaut Training Center outside Moscow later in the day.
NASA has postponed the decision to return Artemis I to the Vehicle Assembly Building due to tropical storms.
The station currently serves European Space Agency Samantha Cristoforetti, NASA astronauts Bob Hynes, Sher Lindgren, Frank Rubio, Jessica Watkins, and Russian space agency Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Prokopiev. Operated by Dmitri Petelin.