spacetoday.net: Soyuz spacecraft lands in Kazakhstan

Posted: Tue, Sep 18, 2012, 6:42 AM ET (1042 GMT)
Soyuz TMA-04M landing (NASA)

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying two Russian cosmonauts and one American astronaut from the International Space Station landed safely in Kazakhstan on Monday. The Soyuz TMA-04M landed north of Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, at 10:53 pm EDT Sunday (0253 GMT, 8:53 am local time Monday), slightly less than four hours after undocking from the ISS. The three has spent 125 days in space, all but two on the ISS. Three crewmembers remain on the station: NASA's Sunita Williams, JAXA's Akihiko Hoshide, and Roscosmos's Yuri Malenchenko, remain on the station. Three new crewmembers will join them on the station in late October. That launch of new crew has been pushed back from mid to late October, Russian officials said, to allow time to replace a component on their Soyuz spacecraft.