Washington DC [US], December 10 (ANI): NASA astronaut Jonny Kim returned to Earth Tuesday (local time) with Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Alexey Zubritsky, concluding an eight-month science mission aboard the International Space Station, NASA said. The Soyuz MS-27 spacecraft made a safe, parachute-assisted landing at 10:03 am local time southeast of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, after departing the station at 8:41 pm on December 8.
The crew spent 245 days in space, orbiting Earth 3,920 times and traveling nearly 104 million miles. They launched to the station on April 8. The flight was the first for Kim and Zubritsky; Ryzhikov completed his third mission, bringing his total time in space to 603 days.
During the mission, Kim participated in numerous experiments and technology demonstrations. He studied bioprinted tissues with blood vessels in microgravity to advance space-based tissue production for Earth patients; evaluated remote command of multiple robots for the Surface Avatar study to inform future robotic assistants; and worked on in-space manufacturing of DNA-mimicking nanomaterials to improve drug delivery and support regenerative medicine.
After post-landing medical checks, the crew will move to the recovery staging area in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Kim will return to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. For more than 25 years the ISS has hosted continuous human presence, serving as a critical testbed for long-duration spaceflight and commercial low Earth orbit activities as NASA focuses on Artemis missions to the Moon and future Mars exploration.
