N° 25–2016: Tim Peake returns to Earth

Soyuz TMA-19M braked from the Station’s cruising speed of almost 28 800 km/h and entered the atmosphere shortly afterwards. The crew module separated as planned and parachutes deployed to slow the vehicle even more.

Retrorockets fired moments before landing and springs in the moulded seats reduced the impact of hitting the ground at 09:15 GMT. Teams were on hand within minutes to help them out.

They leave behind three astronauts to look after the Station and run experiments. The next launch to complete the crew is scheduled for 7 July on an upgraded Soyuz with cosmonaut Anatoli Ivanishin, Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and NASA’s Kate Rubins.

Principia

Tim Peake’s Principia mission was an eventful and busy six months in space. In the first month after his launch on 15 December 2015, Tim conducted a spacewalk. He also drove a rover across a simulated Mars terrain from space and helped to dock two spacecraft.

Tim took part in numerous experiments for ESA and international partners. Highlights include using the Space Station airlock to study Tim’s lungs, monitoring his sleeping patterns to learn how humans adapt to life without normal daylight, and recording how many calories he consumed to prepare for missions further from Earth.

Many experiments ran continuously while Tim and his crewmates were maintaining the weightless research laboratory. ESA’s Expose facility was returned to Earth after submitting organisms and chemicals to 18 months of travelling unprotected in space on the outside of the Station.

The Solar facility on Europe’s Columbus laboratory module continues to monitor our Sun after eight years of continuous observations. Another facility is tracking ships as the Space Station flies overhead.

Aside from his maintenance and science duties, Tim also enthralled the world via social media and ran a marathon in space. The next ESA astronaut to travel to the Station will be Thomas Pesquet of French nationality, scheduled for launch in November.

Back to the European Astronaut Centre

Tim is the eighth ESA astronaut to complete a long-duration mission in space. He will be the third after Alexander Gerst and Andreas Mogensen to fly directly to ESA’s astronaut home base in Cologne, Germany, for medical checks and for researchers to collect more data on how Tim’s body and mind have adapted to living in space.

Media are invited to meet Tim at the post-flight press conference at EAC on Tuesday, 21 June, 13:00 CEST. Details in ESA PR 24-2016

About the European Space Agency

The European Space Agency (ESA) provides Europe’s gateway to space.

ESA is an intergovernmental organisation, created in 1975, with the mission to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space delivers benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.

ESA has 22 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, of whom 20 are Member States of the EU.

ESA has established formal cooperation with seven other Member States of the EU. Canada takes part in some ESA programmes under a Cooperation Agreement.

By coordinating the financial and intellectual resources of its members, ESA can undertake programmes and activities far beyond the scope of any single European country. It is working in particular with the EU on implementing the Galileo and Copernicus programmes.

ESA develops the launchers, spacecraft and ground facilities needed to keep Europe at the forefront of global space activities.

Today, it develops and launches satellites for Earth observation, navigation, telecommunications and astronomy, sends probes to the far reaches of the Solar System and cooperates in the human exploration of space.

Learn more about ESA at www.esa.int

For further information, please contact:

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