One American and two Russians landed their Soyuz spacecraft safely in Kazakhstan on Thursday morning, and a NASA photographer captured a beautiful image of their capsule parachuting toward a heavy fog.
The three touched down near the remote town of Dzhezkazgan, and were quickly wrapped up to protect them from freezing temperatures.
Barry Wilmore, commander of NASA’s Expedition 42, was returning to earth after almost six months aboard the International Space Station.
Also returning after 167 days away was Elena Serova of the Russian Federal Space Agency, here pictured resting in a chair minutes after exiting the spacecraft.
Alexander Samokutyaev of the Russian Federal Space Agency was the third astronaut to return. NASA said that their mission “included hundreds of scientific experiments and several spacewalks.”
Their research focused partly on human health management for long space missions. NASA and the Russian Federal Space Agency are preparing two crew members to spend an entire year aboard the space station.
