MOSCOW (dpa-AFX) - Three astronauts have returned to Earth on Tuesday, wrapping up an eight-month science mission aboard the International Space Station to benefit life on Earth and future space exploration.
US astronaut Jonny Kim and Russia's Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky made a safe, parachute-assisted landing at 12:03 a.m. ET southeast of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, after departing the space station at 8:41 p.m. on December 8, aboard the Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft.
NASA said that following post-landing medical checks, the crew will return to the recovery staging area in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Kim will then board a NASA aircraft bound for the agency's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Over the course of 245 days in space, the crew orbited Earth 3,920 times, traveling nearly 104 million miles. They launched to the space station on April 8. This mission marked the first spaceflight for both Kim and Zubritsky, while Ryzhikov completed his third journey to space, logging a total of 603 days in space.
While aboard the orbiting laboratory, Kim contributed to a wide range of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations. He studied the behavior of bioprinted tissues containing blood vessels in microgravity for an experiment helping advance space-based tissue production to treat patients on Earth. He also evaluated the remote command of multiple robots in space for the Surface Avatar study, which could support the development of robotic assistants for future exploration missions. Additionally, Kim worked on developing in-space manufacturing of DNA-mimicking nanomaterials, which could improve drug delivery technologies and support emerging therapeutics and regenerative medicine.
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