REUTERS — A Soyuz TMA-19m capsule with three Expedition 47 crew members aboard undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) and began its return to earth on Saturday (June 18).
The separation occurred at 0552 GMT Saturday and the capsule slowly moved away from the space station.
The Soyuz capsule contained Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko, NASA’s U.S. astronaut Tim Kopra and European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut, Briton Tim Peake, and is expected to touch down at 1014 GMT on Saturday in Kazakhstan.
The command of the International Space Station changed hands on Friday (June 17) when the three Expedition 47 crew members handed off to the three Expedition 48 members aboard the ISS.
On Friday U.S. Commander Tim Kopra handed over the station command to Flight Engineer Jeff Williams by ringing the bell aboard the ISS at 1319 GMT. Williams is joined by cosmonauts Oleg Skripochka and Alexey Ovchinin.
The departing trio completed 186 days in space.