Luke Parmitano ready to return to Earth - ANSA.it

Into The astronaut Luca Parmitano is ready to return to its long-term mission after the greetings and hugs with colleagues who will remain on the space station, was closed the door of the Russian Soyuz, which will bring the astronaut ‘European Space Agency (ESA) to Earth with his Russian commander Fyodor Yurchikhin and American colleague Karen Nyberg.

On board the Soyuz TMA-09M is also the Olympic torch in the Winter Games program in February 2014 Russia, in Sochi. The astronauts entered the Soyuz after the ceremony of the handover between the commander of the expedition 37, Fyodor Yurchikhin, and the commander of the Expedition 38, Oleg Kotov.

As the commander of the Soyuz, Yurchikhin occupies the central seat of the shuttle, as on the outward journey Parmitano Luke sits at the right hand of the commander with the qualification flight engineer and co-pilot. On the left, Karen Nyberg with the qualification of engineer on board. While Yurchikhin is the third return trip on a Souyz for Parmitano and Nyberg is the first experience of this kind. The American astronaut, in fact, had faced only return to Earth aboard the Shuttle. For Parmitano is obviously the first-ever return from space.

Around midnight is expected to release the shuttle from the Space Station. This begins the journey back to Earth, which will bring the shuttle to land in the steppe of Kazakhstan.