SAN DIEGO — MOSCOW (AP) — An International Space Station crew has landed safely in Kazakhstan after more than 200 days in space.
The Soyuz capsule carrying NASA astronauts Andrew Morgan, Jessica Meir and Russian space agency Roscosmos’ Oleg Skripochka touched down on Friday near the town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 11:16 a.m.
The crew returned to Earth exactly 50 years after the Apollo 13 astronauts splashed down in the Pacific after an oxygen tank explosion aborted the moon-landing mission.
Morgan wrapped up a 272-day mission on his first flight into space. He conducted seven space walks, four of which were to improve and extend the life of the station’s Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which looks for evidence of dark matter in the universe.
During her first spaceflight, Meir conducted the first three all-woman spacewalks with crewmate Christina Koch of NASA, totaling 21 hours and 44 minutes.
The UC San Diego alumna also worked on scientific experiments ranging from studying gravity’s effect on the human body to protein crystal growth to radiation’s effect on humans.
After landing, the crew will return by Russian helicopters to the recovery staging city in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, where they will split up.
Meir will board a NASA plane located in the adjacent city of Kyzlorda, Kazakhstan, for a flight back to Houston.
Watch the live stream below:
Full NASA TV coverage is as follows:
Thursday, April 16:
3 p.m.: Farewell and Soyuz hatch closure coverage (hatch closure at 3:30 p.m.)
6:30 p.m.: Soyuz undocking coverage (undocking scheduled for 6:53 p.m.)
9 p.m.: Soyuz deorbit burn and landing coverage (deorbit burn at 9:22 p.m. and landing at 10:17 p.m.)
