Landing of Russian and US astronauts moved forward to March 11

The landing of the Soyuz TMA-10M reentry capsule with two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut has been moved forward from March 12 to March 11.

The landing site has also been moved from Arkalyk, Kazakhstan, because of large snowdrifts in the area, Alexei Krasnov, who is responsible for piloted missions in the Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos), told ITAR-TASS on Wednesday, February 12.

“Initially, we considered the northern site outside Arkalyk for the landing. But there is a lot of snow there, up to three meters. No helicopter can land there. And it will be hard to find the reentry capsule under so much snow. This is why we decided to move the landing to the southern site outside Dzhezkazgan,” he said, adding that the crew would return to Earth of March 11. “This is the final date and it will not change,” he said.

Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky of Russia and Michael Hopkins of NASA arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) on September 26, 2013. Kotov and Ryazansky took the Olympic torch to outer space and took unique shots of it outside the station.

Quelle: ITARTASS