Astronaut describes ‘amazing experience’ on space station

Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, American Thomas Marshburn and Russian Roman Romanenko landed as planned near the town of Dzhezkazgan.

The Soyuz TMA-07M capsule slowly descended by parachute onto the sun-drenched steppes under clear skies. Russian search and rescue helicopters hovered over the landing site for a quick recovery effort.

Rescue teams moved quickly to help the crew in their bulky spacesuits get out through the narrow exit hatch of the capsule. They were then put into reclining chairs to start adjusting to Earth’s gravity after 146 days in space.

Cmdr Hadfield, 53, an engineer and former test pilot from Ontario, was Canada’s first professional astronaut to live aboard the space station and became the first Canadian in charge of a spacecraft.

“It’s just been an extremely fulfilling and amazing experience end to end,” he told Mission Control.

A three-man US-Russian crew is staying on the space station and will be joined in two weeks by the next trio of astronauts.