KE7KDP, KE5AIT AND RA3DT RETURN FROM THE ISS
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Two members of the Expedition 18th International Space Station crew and a 
space tourist on his second trip to the I-S-S returned to Earth at 2:16 a.m. 
C-D-T on Wednesday, April 8th.

Landing safely in southern Kazakhstan were NASA astronaut Mike Fincke, KE5AIT, 
Russian cosmonaut Yury Lonchakov, RA3DT and spaceflight participant Charles 
Simonyi, KE7KDP. The three made the return trip on board a Russian built Soyuz 
spacecraft.

The Expedition 18 crew members undocked from the I-S-S at 10:55 p.m. April 7. 
The deorbit burn to slow the Soyuz and begin its descent toward Earth began at 
1:24 a.m. on April 8th. The landing was moved to a more southerly site because 
of poor landing conditions at the original site.

Charles Simonyi, KE7KDP, spent 11 days on the I-S-S under a commercial 
agreement with the Russian Federal Space Agency. During his mission he was on 
the air as much as possible using the ARISS station that’s a permanent part of 
the I-S-S. Simonyi is also the only paying spaceflight participant to visit 
the station twice with this trip reportedly costing him close to $35 million 
dollars.

Meantime, astronaut Mike Fincke, KE5AIT, now officially holds the record for 
the most ARISS contacts on a single expedition as well as the most for multiple 
missions. During his stay on board the International Space Station, Fincke 
logged a total of 426 space to earth school contacts by an expedition and 22 
ARISS supported terrestrial contacts. Because of this, Expedition 18 has now set 
the record for the greatest number of ARISS contacts by any single ISS expedition. 
(AR-Newsline)