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March 18, 2010. S.P.Korolev RSC Energia - MCC-M,
Korolev, Moscow region

The Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft descent module (DM) at 14:25, Moscow time, returned to the Earth. All DM descent, search and landing operations were performed normally.

Russian cosmonaut M. Suraev (the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft commander) and NASA astronaut J. Williams completed their flight to the International Space Station (ISS) under the ISS-21/22 program.

Onboard the Station the prime crew for the International Space Station (ISS-23), namely Russian cosmonaut O. Kotov, NASA astronaut T. Creamer and Japanese Space Agency astronaut S. Noguchi continue working.

At Mission Control Center near Moscow (MCC-M) such operations as the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft de-orbit and ground landing, search for DM landed and the crew evacuation from it were performed under control of the State Commission (Chairman - Director of the Federal Space Agency A.N. Perminov) and Engineering Management for the manned space complexes flight testing (Director - President of RSC Energia, General Designer V.A. Lopota).

The Main Operations Control Team working at MCC-M together with specialists of the aerospace search and rescue, other Russian organizations and services, as well as Mission Control Center (MCC) in Houston controlled the flight of the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft in the phase of its return to the Earth.

Representatives of FSA, NASA, ESA, Russian enterprises and organizations participating in the ISS program implementation, who were present at MCC-M controlled the performance of final operations for the spacecraft de-orbit and its DM landing to the ground.

At MCC-M upon the crew evacuation from DM a press conference for Russian and foreign journalists was held. Heads and representatives of Roscosmos, RSC Energia, foreign space agencies, prime contractors of the Russian rocket-space industry took part in it.

 

 

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