Categories: Space ExplorationSpace FlightSpace Station

Expedition 30 Crew Returns to Earth Safely

Welcome back home to the Expedition 30 crew of the International Space Station! The Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft carrying Commander Dan Burbank and Flight Engineers Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin landed in Kazakhstan on Friday, April 27 at 11:45 UTC (7:45 a.m. EDT). They undocked earlier from the International Space Station at 8:18 UTC (4:18 a.m. EDT). Take a look at the video of how painstaking it is to extract the crew from the Soyuz capsule!

Expedition 31 began when Burbank, Shkaplerov and Ivanishin undocked from the station. On board the ISS now is Commander Oleg Kononenko and Flight Engineers Don Pettit and Andre Kuipers. They will continue their stay until July 1, and they will be joined in in mid-May by Flight Engineers Gennady Padalka, Joe Acaba and Sergei Revin. Right now, their launch is scheduled for May 15 and their stay in space would last until September 17.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/