Space Station Crew Landing Moved to Saturday

The 14th crew of the ISS, Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria and Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin, along with Spaceflight Participant Charles Simonyi, will land at 8:30 a.m. EDT Saturday, April 21 in Kazakhstan.

The return of the Soyuz spacecraft was delayed a day, and the landing site was moved farther south. The Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, made the decisions to avoid wet conditions at the original landing site that could have interfered with recovery helicopter operations.

Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin is now in charge of the International Space Station. Staying with him after Expedition 14 leaves are flight engineers Oleg Kotov and Suni Williams. The change-of-command ceremony took place in the Destiny laboratory at 4:40 p.m. EDT Tuesday.

Expedition 14 Commander Michael Lopez-Alegria, Flight Engineer Mikhail Tyurin and Spaceflight Participant Charles Simonyi leave the station April 21 in a Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft. They will land northeast of Arkalyk which is southeast of the usual landing site in Kazakhstan. The landing was delayed a day and moved farther south because wet ground at the initial site precluded helicopter operations there.

On Monday, Suni Williams became the first human to run the Boston Marathon in space. She finished the race on a specially designed treadmill in 4 hours, 23 minutes and ten seconds.

Source: NASA