10/23/2020

Soyuz MS-16 Spacecraft Safely Returns back to Earth Expedition 63 Space Crew

Three Optolink's TRS-500 fiber-optic gyroscopes, installed into control system of Descent Module of the latest Soyuz modification, Soyuz MS-16 spacecraft, successfully executed their mission during landing. The Soyuz MS-16 manned spacecraft’s descent capsule landed in Kazakhstan at 22:55 EDT on Wednesday, 21 October (02:55 UTC on Thursday, 22 October, 08:54 a.m. Kazakhstan time), bringing Roscosmos cosmonauts Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy back to Earth after a long expedition. Ivanishin, Vagner and Cassidy returned after 196 days in space having served as Expedition 62-63 crew members onboard the International Space Station, mission covering 133.5 million kilometers (83 million miles) over 3,136 orbits of Earth. The landing module safely landed on-target about 147 kilometers south-east from the town of Dzhezkazgan in the Kazakhstan. With landing, Cassidy will complete his third flight for a total of 378 days in space, the fifth-highest among U.S. astronauts.  Ivanishin will finish his third flight, accumulating 476 days in space.  This was Vagner’s first spaceflight totalling 196 days.