VIDEO: Expedition 42-43 mission preview

Three crew members departed the International Space Station on Wednesday and descended back to Earth, touching down in Kazakhstan aboard the Soyuz TMA-14M capsule at 10:08 p.m. EDT (0208 GMT Thursday).

International Space Station managers Friday cleared astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Terry Virts to proceed with a third spacewalk Sunday, as originally planned, after concluding a small amount of water in Virts’ space helmet after an EVA Wednesday was an understood condition and not a threat to crew safety.

Two Russian cosmonauts and a U.S. Navy test pilot will buckle into custom-molded seats inside a Soyuz spaceship Wednesday, undock from the International Space Station and head for a parachute-assisted landing in Kazakhstan to close out a 167-day space voyage.