Nearly five months of cramped living in zero gravity will come
to an end Thursday for one American astronaut and two Russian
cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station. Their Soyuz
capsule is set to undock at 8:30 p.m. ET, and land less than
three and a half hours later in Kazakhstan. Soyuz modules are
vital to the Russian space program. They are launched into space
as capsules atop a rocket, and are capable of landing on land,
not requiring a body of water to splash down in. A Soyuz carried
the first ever crew to the ISS in November 2000, according to
NASA. One is docked there at all times, in case the crew needs
to leave in an emergency. It became the standard mode of
transportation to the station after the deadly 2003 Columbia
space shuttle accident. The modern version, the Soyuz TMA, is
made of three parts. Two of them jettison then burn upon reentry
into Earth's atmosphere, according to NASA. Only the Descent
Module will land on Earth, carrying Commander Kevin Ford of
NASA, Russian Soyuz Commander