Craft Returns 3 From Space Station
KUSTANAI, Kazakhstan — A Soyuz space capsule touched down safely today on the steppes of Kazakhstan, bringing a Russian, an American and a Dutchman back from the international space station.
NASA’s Michael Foale and Russian Alexander Kaleri spent six months aboard the 16-nation, $95-billion station. Dutchman Andre Kuipers, with the European Space Agency, spent just 11 days there doing scientific experiments on his first trip into space.
Foale and Kaleri formally handed over the station to Russian Gennady Padalka and American Michael Fincke, who had arrived with Kuipers, when they climbed into the Soyuz TMA-3 and closed the hatches between the station and the spacecraft.
The trip back took about 3 1/2 hours.
The first helicopter reached the landing site within minutes and its crew reported that the capsule was lying upright, on its bottom.
It was the third time an American astronaut had come back to Earth aboard a Russian craft since the U.S. manned space program grounded its shuttle fleet after Columbia broke apart on reentry in February 2003, killing all seven crew members on board.
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