spacetoday.net: Soyuz lands in Kazakhstan

Posted: Tue, May 24, 2011, 7:01 AM ET (1101 GMT)
Soyuz TMA-20 landing (NASA)

A Soyuz spacecraft carrying three ISS crewmembers landed safely in Kazakhstan early Tuesday, several hours after performing an unprecedented photographic survey of the station and space shuttle. The Soyuz TMA-20 capsule landed southeast of the town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, at 10:27 pm EDT Monday (0227 GMT, 8:27 am local time Tuesday) with Russian cosmonaut Dmitry Kondratyev, American astronaut Cady Coleman, and Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli on board. The spacecraft had undocked from the station five hours earlier, the first time a Soyuz undocking took place while a space shuttle was also docked to the station. Space station partners used the undocking as an opportunity to carry out the first photographic survey of the station/shuttle complex, with Nespoli taking photos and video from the Soyuz at a distance of 180 meters. NASA plans to release the imagery on Tuesday.