Expedition 32 Completes Mission, Three Astronauts Return Safely

U.S and Russian astronauts undocked safely from the International Space Station (ISS) and returned to Earth Sunday after successfully completing their mission. The mission lasted for more than four months.

The Russian Soyuz capsule that arrived at the space station May 17 landed on the Kazakh steppe after spending 125 days in orbit aboard the ISS.

The Expedition 32 crew consisted of flight engineer Joseph Acaba of NASA and Russian cosmonauts Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Sergei Revin of the Russian Federal Space Agency and touched down at 8.53 local time.

"Everyone feels great," Padalka was quoted by Msnbc, after the descent module passed through deorbit burn on its journey home and was entering a brief period of silence due to orbital shadow.

After the Souyz spacecraft separated from the space station, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams took command of the Expedition 33. She along with Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko and Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration agency will work aboard till October.

Acaba, Padalka and Revin orbited Earth 2,000 times and traveled 52,906,428 miles. Padalka now ranks fourth for the most days spent in space -- a total of 711 days during four flights.