Russian-American Station Crew Set For Return To Earth

A Russian Soyuz spacecraft is headed back to Earth tonight after a high-flying departure from the International Space Station.

Russian cosmonaut Alexander Skvortsov is in the center seat of the spacecraft, at the controls, flanked by fellow cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko and U.S. astronaut Tracy Caldwell-Dyson.

"Safe journey. Soft landing," station commander Douglas Wheelock, a U.S. astronaut, said as the Soyuz flew below the outpost. "Miss you guys already. Love ya."

"Back at ya," Caldwell-Dyson replied.

You can watch live coverage of the Soyuz atmospheric reentry and landing here in The Flame Trench starting at midnight Eastern time. Click the NASA TV box on the right side of the page to launch our NASA TV viewer.

A four-minute, 21-second deorbit burn is scheduled to take place at 12:31 a.m., and then 21 minutes later, the central descent segment of the craft will separate from the rest of the ship in preparation for atmospheric reentry. The three space travelers in the capsule will start to feel the tug of gravity for the first time since April 2 as the craft drops below 360,000 feet in altitude.

Soyuz parachutes are scheduled to deploy about 1:07 a.m. Landing on the central steppes of Kazakhstan is scheduled for 1:21 a.m. Click to enlarge the landing map.