Sunita Williams is headed back home

November 19, 2012 08:12

Indian-American Sunita Williams and her two co-astronauts Flight Engineers Yuri Malenchenko and Aki Hoshide have undocked from the Rassvet module of International Space Station for their journey back to Earth after spending four months in orbit.

Earlier, the trio bid farewell to their fellow crew-mates Kevin Ford, Evgeny Tarelkin and Oleg Novitskiy, and closed the hatches between the spacecraft before finally undocking at 2226 GMT on Sunday (0356 IST on Monday).

The Soyuz carrying the home-bound trio will land near the town of Arkalyk in Kazakhstan on Monday.

The return of Williams, Hoshide and Malenchenko will wrap up their 127-day stay in space, including 125 days spent aboard the station, since the launch from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 15.

Williams, will have spent a total of 322 days in space during her two long-duration missions.

She previously served aboard the station as an Expedition 14/15 flight engineer from December 9, 2006 to June 22, 2007.

Williams has a total of 50 hours and 40 minutes of spacewalking time over seven spacewalks, including the three she conducted during Expeditions 32 and 33.

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