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 A capsule carrying NASA station commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore
and Russian flight engineers Alexander Samokutyaev and Elena Serova
landed in a vertical upright position shortly after sunrise at 0807
(2207 ET), some 147 km (92 miles) southeast of the town of
Zhezkazgan in central Kazakhstan.
"Everything is going on by the book," said a NASA television
commentator. "Expedition 42 is back on Earth."
Extracted from the capsule, which was charred on re-entry, the three
were seated in semi-reclined chairs for a breath of fresh air and
first medical checks, bundled up in blankets to protect them from
frigid temperatures.
"Everything is great, thank you. The guys are great and worked very
well," said a smiling Serova while a female doctor measured her
pulse and blood pressure.
"Congratulations on the recent holiday," a rescue and recovery team
officer said to Serova, referring to the International Women's Day
marked on March 8.
 Serova made her first space flight and became the first Russian
woman to serve on the ISS, a $100 billion project of 15 countries.
Wilmore and Samokutyaev completed their second flights.
"Everything is fine. I am drinking real tea with lemon," Samokutyaev
said with a smile.
"I am glad to be here," Wilmore said in Russian before the three got
into all-terrain vehicles and were taken to individual helicopters
to be evacuated from the landing area.
NASA astronaut Terry Virts, who took over command of the station
from Wilmore on Tuesday, remains aboard with cosmonaut Anton
Shkaplerov and Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti. They are
due home in mid-May.
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Wilmore partnered with Virts for a trio of spacewalks between Feb.
21 and March 1 to prepare parking spots for two new commercial space
taxis hired by NASA to begin ferrying crew members to and from the
station in 2017.
NASA expects future crews to make four more spacewalks before the
end of the year to install docking ports and other equipment for the
new spaceships.
With the arrival of the next crew, NASA and Russia will be doubling
the mission durations in an attempt to learn more about how the
human body responds to even longer stays in space.
NASA astronaut Mark Kelly and Russia's Mikhail Kornienko are due to
spend a year aboard the station, which flies about 260 miles (418
km) above Earth. They are slated to launch, along with cosmonaut
Gennady Padalka, on March 27 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in
Kazakhstan.
(Reporting by Irene Klotz and Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Lisa
Shumaker and Alan Raybould)
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