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Three astronauts, one from NASA and two other Russian ones are returning back home.
STATES CHRONICLE – Three astronauts working on the International Space Station will get back to home. Shane Kimbrough, a NASA astronaut, Andrey Borisenko, a Russian astronaut, and Sergey Ryzhikov, another Russian astronaut are scheduled to return to Earth, leaving the ISS and embarking on a Soyuz capsule. After their journey begins, they have to wait three and a half hours to see their families again.
On April 10, three astronauts are scheduled to leave the ISS, heading back to Earth
The three astronauts are bound to enter the Soyuz at about 12:40 AM ET on April 10.the undocking event will take place at 3:57 AM ET if everything works as planned. They stayed on the board of the International Space Station for 173 days. The three cosmonauts set off for the ISS in October 2016. For Borisenko and Kimbrough, this was their second mission to the International Space Station and the first one for Ryzhikov.
During their stay aboard the ISS, Kimbrough engaged in three spacewalks. He changed some batteries and made some reparations on the outside of the space station. Now, in his entire astronaut career, he performed six spacewalks. Now that the crew will leave the space station, a new commander there is needed. On April 9, Kimbrough passes over command of the International Space Station to Peggy Whitson, a NASA astronaut.
The new commander of the ISS will be Peggy Whitson
She has been working aboard the space station since November 2016. This is not Whitson first time when she is asked to take control of the ISS. Whitson is one of NASA’s astronauts who made history. Back in 2008, she was proclaimed the first female commander of the International Space Station. Now, she is bound to make history the second time, being called the commanding officer of the ISS twice.
Recently, Whitson has recently established another record regarding spacewalks. She is the first female astronaut who performed the highest number of spacewalks up to this point. Kimbrough and his colleagues are now all set to start their journey back home. After they undock the Soyuz capsule at about 4 AM, the probe will stay in orbit for about two hours, getting further away from the ISS.
At 6:28 AM ET, the capsule was scheduled to ignite its engines for just a few minutes to take the spaceship out of orbit, slowly descending towards Earth. The capsule will land an hour later in Kazakhstan at about 7:21 AM ET. The entire process will be broadcast on NASA’s TV channel.
Image courtesy of: wikipedia
