Soyuz Lands Safely

Soyuz TMA-01M and its three-man crew landed safely on the wintery steppes of Kazakhstan at 3:54 am EDT this morning.

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and his two Russian crewmates, Oleg Skripochka and Alexander Kaleri, returned to Earth amid snow and high winds, but the landing apparently took place without any technical difficulties. The crew successfully tested the roll rate sensors after undocking at 12:27 EDT am. Kaleri repaired the sensors during his stay on the ISS after a failure during ascent, and new software was uploaded from the ground.

Three crew members remain on the International Space Station (ISS): American Cady Coleman, Russian Dmitry Kondratyev, and Italian Paolo Nespoli. They will be joined by three more crewmates in several weeks, although the Soyuz launch has been delayed for technical reasons and the exact date is unknown. The three who are waiting for launch are American Ron Garan and Russians Andrei Borisenko and Alexander Samokutyaev.

Those are human crewmates, of course. A humanoid robotic member of the ISS crew, Robonaut-2, has been unpacked and is ready to “teach engineers how dextrous robots behave in space and through upgrades and advancements could one day venture outside the station to help spacewalkers make repairs or additions to the station or perform scientific work” according to NASA’s ISS website.