Expedition 43 crew says bye to ISS, lands safely in Kazakhstan

DZHEZKAZGAN, Kazakhstan, June 11 (UPI) -- The International Space Station's Expedition 43 crew are safely back on Earth, having successfully touched down in their Soyuz capsule at 9:44 a.m. EDT on Thursday.

Expedition 43 was led by Commander Terry Virts, the crew's only member from NASA. He was joined on the 199-day mission by Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov and Samantha Cristoforetti of the European Space Agency.

The crew was merrily greeted by family, journalists and space agency officials in Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan.

While on board, the three crew members performed a number of spacewalks and executed several technology upgrades and repairs. They also performed a variety of scientific experiments and participated in studies aimed at better understanding the health effects of microgravity.

The crew's homecoming was supposed to happen last month, but the failure of Russia's robotic Progress 59 cargo mission forced officials to delay planned return. Their departure was almost disrupted again, when a communication glitch caused the docked Soyuz capsule to inadvertently fire its rockets -- briefly throwing the space station's orbit off kilter.

The delay wasn't all bad, though. The extra time in space allowed Cristoforetti to set the record for longest space mission by a woman, besting NASA astronaut Suni Williams' previous record of 195 days.

Until three new crew members arrive in late July, Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and Mikhail Kornienko, in addition to NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, will be the sole occupiers of the International Space Station.

"Kelly and Kornienko are on the first joint U.S.-Russian one-year mission, an important stepping stone on NASA's journey to Mars," officials explained in a recent press release.