Russian Space Capsule Lands in Kazakhstan
21 minutes ago
ASTANA, Kazakhstan - Two American astronauts along with a Russian cosmonaut returned to Earth from the international space station (news - web sites) Sunday in a cramped Russian capsule, the only way home after the Columbia space shuttle disaster.
The parachute landing in the isolated steppes of Kazakhstan in Central Asia ended a mission severely shaken by the Feb. 1 accident, which led to the grounding of the entire U.S. shuttle fleet and forced a change in travel plans for the astronauts left stranded in space.
Rather than gliding to Florida in a shuttle, Kenneth Bowersox, Donald Pettit and their Russian colleague Nikolai Budarin rode in a Soyuz TMA capsule, just over two yards by two yards in size. Russian mission control announced the capsule's landing about three hours after it undocked from the space station.
They are the first NASA astronauts to land in a foreign spacecraft in a foreign land.
Source - http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...d=624&ncid=716