{"id":63220,"date":"2026-07-25T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/?guid=77604e68684a33a9f7898d777fd082b5"},"modified":"2026-07-27T10:05:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T10:05:45","slug":"nasa-astronaut-2-cosmonauts-returning-to-earth-on-july-26-watch-it-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/2026\/07\/25\/nasa-astronaut-2-cosmonauts-returning-to-earth-on-july-26-watch-it-live\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA astronaut, 2 cosmonauts return to Earth after 241 days on space station (video)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n                            \n                            <article>\n                                <iframe src=\"https:\/\/content.jwplatform.com\/players\/JFBOipee.html\" id=\"JFBOipee\" title=\"Touchdown! NASA Astronaut & 2 Cosmonauts Return Safely to Earth\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"auto\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><p>A U.S.-Russian crew returned to Earth from the International Space Station early Sunday morning (July 26), after 241 days in orbit.<\/p><p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/40951-soyuz-spacecraft.html\"><u>Soyuz<\/u><\/a> spacecraft carrying NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev of the Russian space agency <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/22724-roscosmos.html\"><u>Roscosmos<\/u><\/a> undocked from the orbiting lab on Sunday at 3:03 a.m. EDT (0703 GMT).<\/p><p>The Soyuz, known as MS-28, landed on the steppe of Kazakhstan 3 hours and 24 minutes later, at 6:27 a.m. EDT (1027 GMT). <\/p><figure class=\"van-image-figure  inline-layout\" data-bordeaux-image-check ><div class='image-full-width-wrapper'><div class='image-widthsetter' style=\"max-width:1920px;\"><p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.25%;\"><img id=\"9TkcGdYBXZGEEVWpHyRWLd\" name=\"55420293436_4d0968c2b8_o\" alt=\"an aerial photograph of a space capsule descending under a large white and orange parachute to a landing on a barren steppe as recovery vehicles approach.\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/9TkcGdYBXZGEEVWpHyRWLd.jpg\" mos=\"\" align=\"middle\" fullscreen=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" class=\"inline\"><\/p><\/div><\/div><figcaption itemprop=\"caption description\" class=\" inline-layout\"><span class=\"caption-text\">Roscosmos' Soyuz  MS-28 spacecraft is seen as it lands in a remote area near the town of  Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan with Expedition 74 NASA astronaut Chris Williams  and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, and Sergei Mikaev aboard, on Sunday, July 26, 2026. <\/span><span class=\"credit\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">(Image credit: NASA\/Bill Ingalls)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><p>The crew's departure activities began on Saturday morning with a change-of-command ceremony aboard the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/missions\/international-space-station\"><u>International Space Station<\/u><\/a> (ISS). Kud\u2011Sverchkov handed over the reins of the orbiting lab to NASA astronaut <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/international-space-station\/just-in-time-for-canada-day-spacewalking-astronauts-repair-space-stations-huge-canadarm2\"><u>Jessica Meir<\/u><\/a>, part of the transition from ISS Expedition 74 to Expedition 75 (which officially began when Soyuz MS\u201128 undocked). <\/p><p>The crew then gave their farewells and closed the hatches between the ISS and Soyuz MS-28 on Saturday night.<\/p><figure class=\"van-image-figure  inline-layout\" data-bordeaux-image-check ><div class='image-full-width-wrapper'><div class='image-widthsetter' style=\"max-width:1920px;\"><p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.25%;\"><img id=\"wQksDeVCCSfkai6YCg3nwJ\" name=\"55420307673_06408c40ec_o\" alt=\"three men in white and blue striped pressure suits are seen from above inside a cramped space capsule\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net\/wQksDeVCCSfkai6YCg3nwJ.jpg\" mos=\"\" align=\"middle\" fullscreen=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" class=\"\"><\/p><\/div><\/div><figcaption itemprop=\"caption description\" class=\" inline-layout\"><span class=\"caption-text\">NASA  astronaut Chris Williams, left, Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, center, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergei Mikaev are seen inside the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft after they landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday, July 26, 2026.  <\/span><span class=\"credit\" itemprop=\"copyrightHolder\">(Image credit: NASA\/Bill Ingalls)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure><p>Soyuz MS-28 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/space-exploration\/human-spaceflight\/soyuz-rocket-launches-us-russian-crew-to-international-space-station-with-thanksgiving-day-liftoff\"><u>launched to the ISS on Nov. 27<\/u><\/a>, which was Thanksgiving Day. That liftoff kicked off the first space mission for Williams and Mikaev and the second for Kud\u2011Sverchkov, who now has logged 426 days and 9 minutes in space.<\/p><p>The MS-28 trio orbited <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/54-earth-history-composition-and-atmosphere.html\"><u>Earth<\/u><\/a> 3,856 times and traveled a total of more than 102 million miles (164 million kilometers).<\/p><p>Now back on Earth, the three spaceflyers were first flown by helicopter to Karaganda, Kazakhstan, where recovery teams were based. Williams then will return to NASA's <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/17216-nasa-johnson-space-center.html\"><u>Johnson Space Center<\/u><\/a> in Houston, while Kud\u2011Sverchkov and Mikaev head back to their training base in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/entertainment\/space-movies-shows\/star-city-release-date-and-how-to-watch-apple-tvs-superb-soviet-set-space-series\"><u>Star City<\/u><\/a>, Russia.<\/p>\n                                                            <\/article>\n                            \n                        ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA astronaut Chris Williams and two Russian cosmonauts returned to Earth from the International Space Station early Sunday morning (July 26).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":587,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1411,1263],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-human-spaceflight","category-space-exploration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63220"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/587"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63220"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63286,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63220\/revisions\/63286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hoo.central12.com\/fugic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}