09/07/2016

Soyuz TMA-20M Spacecraft Safely Returns back to Earth Expedition 48 Space Crew after 173-day Space Flight

Three Optolink's TRS-500 fiber-optic gyroscopes, installed into control system of Descent Module of Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft, successfully executed their mission during landing. The Russian Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft has successfully returned Expedition 48 Commander Flight Engineer Jeff Williams of NASA, along with Soyuz Commander Alexey Ovchinin and Flight Engineer Oleg Skripochka of Roscosmos, to Earth. The spacecraft has safely soft-landed on Wednesday, 07 September 2016 at 01:14 UTC (4:14 a.m. Moscow time) on the steppes of Kazakhstan, 148 kilometers southeast from the town of Dzhezkazgan, after nearly 173-day space flight. It is the final planned Soyuz TMA-M, which will be replaced by the upgraded Soyuz-MS.