Three space station residents crammed inside a capsule smaller than a compact car landed on the austere plans of Kazakhstan on Thursday, returning to Earth for their first taste of gravity and whiff of nature in nearly seven months.
Commanded by veteran cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov, who was flanked by European Space Agency flight engineer Samantha Cristoforetti and NASA astronaut Terry Virts, the Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft landed at 1344 GMT (9:44 a.m. EDT; 7:44 p.m. local time) Thursday.
The photos from NASA and ESA photographers at the landing site show the final descent of the Soyuz TMA-15M return module under its orange and white parachute, a jolting, rocket-assisted touchdown, then the greeting of Shkaplerov, Cristoforetti and Virts by the Russian recovery team.
