Expedition 16 Going Home Saturday Morning

Image above: The outgoing crew members from left are South Korean spaceflight participant So-yeon Yi with Expedition 16 Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko and Commander Peggy Whitson. Credit: NASA TV

With Expedition 17 officially in command of the International Space Station, Expedition 16 is packed up and ready to return to Earth. Outgoing commander Peggy Whitson handed over controls of the orbiting complex to new commander Sergei Volkov Thursday afternoon.

Going home with Whitson is Flight Engineer Yuri Malenchenko and South Korean spaceflight participant So-yeon Yi. They will undock Saturday at 1:06 a.m. EDT in their Soyuz TMA-11 and land in the steppes of Kazakhstan at 4:30 a.m.

Watch NASA Television beginning at 9:30 p.m. tonight for hatch closure, again at 12:30 a.m. for undocking and finally at 3:15 a.m. for the deorbit burn and landing.

Flight Engineer Garrett Reisman who joined Expedition 16 in March is staying behind continuing his stay with Volkov and Flight Engineer Oleg Kononenko.

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