ROSCOSMOS - Soyuz TMA-06M Mission patch / ISS - Expedition 34 Mission patch.
March 15, 2013
Image above: Expedition 34 Soyuz Commander Oleg Novitskiy (center) says goodbye to the three station residents staying behind moments before closing the hatches. Credit: NASA TV.
Expedition 34 Commander Kevin Ford and Flight Engineers Evgeny Tarelkin and Oleg Novitskiy undocked from the International Space Station in the Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft at 7:43 p.m. EDT Thursday, wrapping up 142 days aboard the orbiting outpost.
Expedition 34 Says Goodbye and Undocks
After performing a deorbit burn, the Soyuz will be on track for a scheduled 11:05 p.m. landing in the steppe of Kazakhstan, northeast of the remote town of Arkalyk, wrapping up 144 days in space for the three. The crew members bid farewell to one another and closed the hatches between the two spacecraft at 4:38 p.m.
NASA TV coverage of deorbit and landing begins at 9:45 p.m. and will continue until the crew is safely in the medical tent at the landing site.
Three members of the Expedition 34 crew pose for some photographs in their Sokol suits in the Destiny lab. Credit: NASA.
The undocking marks the end of Expedition 34 and the start of Expedition 35 under the command of Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield, who is scheduled to remain on the station with Flight Engineers Tom Marshburn and Roman Romanenko until May. Ford ceremonially handed command of the station over to Hadfield on Wednesday. Hadfield, Marshburn and Romanenko arrived at the station aboard the Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft in December 2012.
Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft docked at ISS. Credit: NASA TV
Watch the change of command ceremony: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=160978461
Hadfield, Marshburn and Romanenko will remain aboard the orbiting complex as a three-person crew until the March 28 launch and docking of Expedition 35 Flight Engineers Chris Cassidy, Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin.
Read more about Expedition 35: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition35/index.html
Images, Video, Text, Credits: NASA / NASA TV / ROSCOSMOS / ROSCOSMOS TV.
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