Russian spacecraft Soyuz TM-23 returned from Mir space station.
NASA astronaut Frank Rubio and two Russian cosmonauts undocked from the International Space Station and plunged back to Earth landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out an unexpected yearlong stay in space, the longest single flight in U.S. space history.
**"Read More" BELOW for the complete story**
With Soyuz MS-69/23S commander Sergey Prokopyev monitoring cockpit displays, flanked on the left by co-pilot Dmitri Petelin and on the right by NASA flight engineer Frank Rubio, the Russian ferry ship undocked from the space station’s multi-port Prichal module at 3:54 a.m. EDT.
After backing a safe distance away from the lab and waiting to reach the precise point in space to begin the descent, the spacecraft fired its braking rockets for four minutes and 39 seconds starting at 6:24 a.m., slowing the ship’s 17,100-mph velocity by about 286 mph.
That was just enough to drop the far side of the orbit deep into the atmosphere, putting the ship on course for the targeted landing site.
After separating from the upper orbital compartment and lower propulsion and power module, the central crew compartment, the only one protected by a heat shield, hit the top of the discernible atmosphere, 62 miles up, at 6:55 a.m. and landed near the town of Dzhezkazgan at 7:17 a.m. (5:17 p.m. local time).