Astronaut Sunita Williams back home after 4 months in space

New Delhi, Nov 19: It's a happy home-coming for Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams, who came back to Earth, after spending four-months in orbit on Monday, Nov 19.

The Soyuz capsule, carrying Williams and two other cosmonauts, landed at the Kazakhstan space station at 7.50 am IST. The record-setting Indian-American NASA astronaut Williams ceremonially handed over the command of the International Space Station to fellow NASA astronaut Kevin Ford on the eve of her departure from the complex.

"We have left the ship in good shape and am honoured to hand it over to Kevin as we are going soon home and the ship is again in good hands," Williams had said while handing over the command.

Ford, who has served as an Expedition 33 flight engineer since arriving at the station Oct 25, will become commander of Expedition 34 at the time the Soyuz TMA-05M carrying Williams, Hoshide and Malenchenko undocks from the station on Sunday at 5:26 pm EST for a landing in the steppe of Kazakhstan several hours later.

Their return will wrap up 127 days in space since their launch from Kazakhstan on Jul 15 last, including 125 days spent aboard the station. Ford and his crewmates, Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy and Evgeny Tarelkin, will tend to the station as a three-man crew until the arrival of three additional Flight Engineers in December.

NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield and Russian Federal Space Agency cosmonaut Roman Romanenko are scheduled to launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Dec 19 and dock to the station two days later for a five-month stay.

Hadfield will become the first Canadian to command the station when Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin depart in March, marking the start of Expedition 35.

OneIndia News

(With inputs from PTI)