Results tagged “Robert Thirsk”

Canadian Space Agency Flight Engineer Robert Thirsk, Expedition 21 Flight Engineer and Soyuz Commander Roman Romanenko and European Space Agency Flight Engineer Frank De Winne undocked their Soyuz spacecraft from the station at 10:56 p.m. EST Monday and landed in Kazakhstan at 2:15 a.m. Tuesday, 1:15 p.m. local Kazakhstan time. The Soyuz spacecraft landed upright which helped the search and recovery teams extract the astronauts.

Six months aboard the International Space Station has flown by at orbital speed. If asked to do so, I could remain aboard the Station and continue to perform well. But I feel a fatigue setting in that even weekends and a good night's sleep cannot relieve. It is now time to return home.

Next Tuesday Robert Thirsk will return to Earth on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft ending his six month stay on the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 21. In his last week in space he will be very busy with ongoing experiments but will no doubt have time to reflect on the past six months and among those thoughts will be the realization that this is most likely his last time in space.

I haven't driven a car in three months, and yet I've traveled 70 million kilometers. I've watched 16 sunrises and sunsets in a single day. I've sipped coffee out of a bag through a straw, and squeezed macaroni and cheese from a package into my mouth. I've conducted many scientific and medical experiments. I've welcomed extraterrestrial friends to my home and bid them farewell. I've helped repair a toilet, as well as a carbon dioxide scrubber, and an oxygen generator.