Two Russian cosmonauts, U.S. astronaut head back to Earth
Credit: NASAAn American astronaut and the two Russian cosmonauts who carried a Sochi Olympic torch into open space are on their way back to Earth after 166 days aboard the International Space Station.
A Soyuz craft carrying cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky, along with NASA\’s Mike Hopkins, is due to touch down in Kazakhstan early Tuesday.
Kotov and Ryazansky took an unlit Olympic torch on a spacewalk in November and posed with it outside the ISS. The torch was used to light the flame at the opening ceremony of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia last month.
On Sunday, Koichi Wakata became the first Japanese national to oversee a manned space mission, when Kotov handed him command of the ISS.
Source: VOA and agencies
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