Overview
- The Soyuz MS-28 capsule touched down southeast of Dzhezkazgan on Sunday, July 26, ending a 241-day flight for NASA astronaut Chris Williams and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud‑Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev.
- Flight teams executed a standard reentry sequence that began with a deorbit burn, proceeded through a short communications blackout as a superheated plasma formed around the capsule, and ended with parachute descent and final rocket‑assisted soft landing.
- Recovery crews reached the crew within minutes for medical checks, flew them by helicopter to Karaganda, and will send Williams to NASA’s Johnson Space Center while Kud‑Sverchkov and Mikaev return to Star City for rehabilitation.
- During the mission the trio completed two spacewalks and dozens of experiments, including work on Canadarm2, preparation for station power upgrades, cancer‑research studies, and in‑space manufacturing demonstrations.
- A formal change-of-command transferred station leadership to Jessica Meir before the departure, underscoring the continuity of ISS operations and the practical U.S.-Russian cooperation that supports future Moon and Mars missions.