Rocket Firing Propels Station Crew On Ride Home

Two space travelers are headed back to Earth this morning after a smooth departure from the International Space Station and a rocket-firing that dropped their Russian Soyuz spacecraft out of orbit.

Russian cosmonaut Max Suraev and U.S. astronaut Jeffrey Williams are zooming toward the north-central steppes of Kazakhstan outside the remote town of Arkalyk, where the two are expected to land about 7:23 a.m. today. A four-minute, 16-second deorbit burn put the two on course for landing after 169 days in space.

The weather on the snow-covered steppes is cold and windy. Temperatures are just below 20 degrees Fahrenheit and winds are out of the southwest at 17 mph.

Twelve rescue helicopters, three fixed wing aircraft and a bevy of all-terrain vehicles already are in the area with officials from the Russian Federal Space Agency and NASA onboard. The recovery crews are prepared to pull Suraev and then Williams out of the Soyuz and then perform initial post-flight medical testing in an inflated medical tent.

Suraev and Williams launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome on Sept. 30 and arrived at the International Space Station two days later. The departed the outpost just after 4 a.m., leaving three crewmates -- Russian station commander Oleg Kotov, Soichi Noguchi or Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and U.S. astronaut Timothy Creamer -- on the outpost.