BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- The crew of Expedition 29 returned to earth safely after more than five months of research and exploration on the International Space Station, NASA said.
The Soyuz TMA-02M spacecraft carrying Expedition 29 Cmdr. Mike Fossum and flight engineers Satoshi Furukawa and Sergei Volkov landed in Kazakhstan at 9:26 p.m. EST Monday.
They crew spent 165 days aboard the ISS and 167 days in orbit, NASA said in a release.
The space station is now occupied by Expedition 30 Cmdr. Dan Burbank and flight engineers Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin.
After undergoing physical exams and a welcoming ceremony at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Fossum and Furukawa boarded a NASA jet bound for Houston, while Volkov returned to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Russia.
NASA said three additional Expedition 30 flight engineers -- NASA astronaut Don Pettit, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko and European Space Agency astronaut Andre Kuipers -- are scheduled to launch for the space station Dec. 21.
