Two astronauts and a cosmonaut are getting ready to end a more than five-month stay aboard the International Space Station. Expedition 23 crew members T.J. Creamer of the United States, Oleg Kotov of Russia, and Soichi Noguchi of Japan this afternoon climbed into a Soyuz spacecraft and closed the hatch at 4:54 p.m. EDT.
They are scheduled to undock from the outpost at 8:04 p.m. to begin a roughly three-trip back to Earth.
A landing in Kazakhstan more than 200 miles below the station is planned at 11:24 p.m., less than an hour after spacecraft thrusters fire to initiate a plunge through the atmosphere.
You can watch live coverage of the undocking and landing here starting at 7:45 p.m. and 10:15 p.m., respectively. Just click on the NASA TV box at right to launch a viewer.
Staying behind on the station are Expedition 24 crew members Tracy Caldwell Dyson of the U.S. and Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Kornienko of Russia.
Skvortsov took over command of the station from Kotov on Monday.
Expedition 24 will grow to six people June 17, two days after the next crew -- Americans Doug Wheelock and Shannon Walker and Russian Fyodor Yurchikhin -- is scheduled to launch from Kazakhstan.
IMAGE: Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi today posted this photo and the message "Bye!" to his Twitter account.
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