New Delhi:(Page3 News Network)-Record-setting Indian- American Sunita Williams along with two fellow astronauts safely returned to Earth today from the International Space Station. They touched down on the steppes of central Kazakhstan, after spending four months in orbit. It was a perfect landing for Williams and the two astronauts, Flight Engineers Yuri Malenchenko and Aki Hoshide, as they touched down in the dark, chilly expanses of central Kazakhstan on board a Russian Soyuz capsule. The three astronauts landed at 0726 IST in the town of Arkalyk. Helicopters rushed with the search-and-recovery crew to assist them, as their capsule parachuted down some 35 kilometres from the planned touchdown site due to a procedural delay. Another three astronauts remain on board the International Space Station (ISS) and will return next year. Sunita Williams has a total of 50 hours and 40 minutes of spacewalking time over seven spacewalks, including the three
she conducted during Expeditions 32 and 33.
The astronauts from Russia, Japan and the United States performed a series of experiments from testing the affects of low gravity on the spinal chord to investigating melting glaciers on earth.