Second Visiting Expedition To International Space Station Successfully Concludes Its Space Flight

The second visiting expedition to the International Space Station returned to Earth at 7:59 a.m. Moscow time on Wednesday. The international crew, comprising Russian cosmonauts Viktor Afanasyev and Konstantin Kozeyev and French astronaut Claudie Haignere, landed on Kazakh steppes about 180 kilometres southeast of Dzhezkazgan. Today, they will be brought to Star City, near Moscow. The crew stayed onboard the ISS for a week. It delivered to the station a new return vehicle, Soyuz TM-33, conducted several scientific and technical experiments, and brought back to Earth the previous return vehicle, Soyuz TM-32, which docked with the ISS last spring and whose service life was nearing expiry.